ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., MARCH, 1918. 



An Appeal for Co-operation. 



An editor is quite as likely to acquire a varied knowledge 

 of human nature as those whose work is of a less literary 

 character. There are the considerate and the inconsiderate 

 contributors appreciative and inappreciative respectively of 

 the (often) wholly gratuitous labor which the editor performs 

 for the journal, the authors and the subject or cause to which 

 the publication is devoted. The topic is not a new one, nor 

 have we any special present ground for complaint, but, as 

 remarked on this page some years ago, it is well for all of vis 

 to be reminded from time to time of our shortcomings, our 

 carelessnesses, our sins (if we cared to use so strong a word). 



Our lives are brief, ovir working time is limited these un- 

 welcome truths become more vivid as we grow older. It 

 seems as though almost half of that time were often wasted 

 for us by the mistakes, the delays, the slipshod or careless do- 

 ings of others, requiring many things to be done over again. 



Many a paper presented for publication in a given periodical 

 has evidently been prepared without any regard to the form 

 and other requirements of the journal in question, even stand- 

 ing directions on the cover or elsewhere being, it would seem, 

 utterly unheeded. It would not be unjust or too harsh to 

 bluntly refuse such careless contributions, yet not infrequently 

 the editor makes up the deficiencies, smoothes the asperities, 

 writes to the author to send lacking data and so relieves the 

 ^rter of drudgery 'from which he rightly should not be ex- 

 empted. 



The present is a time requiring all the co-operation that is 

 possible. Who is so far-seeing as to be able to detect all the 

 reactions and interactions of our daily deeds? May we not 

 appeal, with successful results, to all who work and write to 

 so care for the details of their labor that others may not, to 

 their own disadvantage, have to gather up the loose ends? 



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