OF WASHINGTON, VOLUME XVIII, 1916 81 



Webster, so far as the writer can find, described only one 

 species Pteromalus gelechiae. In one of his pape 'S he refers 

 to the taxonomists as the pioneers attached to an army corps, 

 who blaze the way, make the roads, build the bridges, and 

 thus enable the army of biological and economic workers to fol- 

 low more smoothly and to realize the direction in which they 

 are going. He, by the way, instances the quarrels of species 

 makers as likely to bring about the same confusion as though the 

 pioneers differed as to the proper construction of a bridge along 

 the path of the army. 



He had a philosophical mind, and many of his papers showed 

 this trend. It is not necessary to recall the titles of these papers 

 to those who read this. Perhaps he sometimes went too far, 

 as in his writing on the trend of insect diffusion in the United 

 States, but it goes to show the breadth of his mind. 



We have referred to the fact that so many of his titles are 

 those of newspaper publications. He defends this manner of 

 publication in his annual address as President of the Association 

 of Economic Entomologists delivered at Detroit August 12, 1837, 

 and he argues that the daily and weekly press form better con- 

 veyances for placing the results of studies and investigations be- 

 fore the public. "The daily press," he says, "can scatter infor- 

 mation broadcast over the land within the space of twenty-four 

 hours and, within a week, place it in the hands of every person 

 who takes even the most isolated weekly paper." He then refers 

 to the unfortunate reputation of the daily press for unreliability 

 of statement, and further s'ates that the agricultural press, while 

 affected in this way to a far less degree, still offers a wide field for 

 improvement. 



This address as a whole is one of the best things Webster 

 ever wrote. It is entitled "The Present and Future of Applied 

 Entomology in America;" and it if sound, while containing 

 many of his characteristic metaphors and similes. He was 

 always a good writer. 



His best work, on the whole, was done with insects that affect 

 cereal and forage crops, the very field in which he built up his 

 branch of the federal entomological service. His early investi- 

 gations of the Hessian fly and the chinch bug started him on ;i 

 long and comprehensive study of 'hese two insects which continued 

 until the day of his death. His joint-worm investigation- opened 

 up a field of much biological as well as economic importance, and 

 he deserves the credit of establishing, not only parthenogenesis 

 in the genus Isosoma, but a dimorphism and alternation of genera- 

 tions which holds in a perfectly fixed way for one of the important 

 crop pests of this genus, Isosoma grande. For nnny years in 

 Ohio he made notes and careful biological observations upon all 



