president's address. 31 



of Washington, was appointed entomologist, and was one of 

 the first men to take up the work against the locusts. His 

 untimely death, from typhoid fever, in 1906, was a great loss 

 to economic entomology in Africa. His assistant, Mr. C. W. 

 Howard, was appointed to the position, but resigned shortly 

 afterwards, and went to Lourenzo Marquez, where he has 

 been doing some good work in connection with the Locust 

 Bureau for Mozambique. At Uganda, the authorities have 

 an entomologist, Mr. C. C. Gowdey, stationed at Entebbe, 

 who has issued some repoi'ts upon cotton-insects. At Cairo, 

 Mr. F. C. Willocks is Entomologist to the Khedivial Agricul- 

 tural Society, and has published some fine papers upon insects 

 injurious to the cotton-plant in Egypt. In the Soudan, Mr. 

 K. H. King, is Entomologist to the Staff of the Gordon 

 Memorial College at Khartoum, and has worked on the mos- 

 quitoes and biting flies of that region. 



At the present time, the Entomological Research Commit- 

 tee has two trained entomologists travelling through the 

 different British Possessions and Protectorates, and enlisting 

 the services of the officers in collecting all kinds of insects for 

 the British Museum. 



The conditions of agriculture and forestry in India and 

 the East generally, make it difficult for scientific investiga- 

 tors or teachers to make much headway in the checking or 

 destruction of insect-pests. It is only within the last few 

 years that any steps have been taken to study Indian insects 

 from an economic standpoint. In 1903, Mr. H. Maxwell 

 Lefroy was appointed Imperial Entomologist to the Govern- 

 ment of India, and the Imperial Research Laboratories were 

 started at Pusa, Upper Bengal, with a staff" of scientific 

 experts at this experimental station. At the time of my visit 

 (1908), the new buildings were just finished: these are fitted 

 with electric light, and all modern equipment. Mr. Maxwell 

 Lefroy had a staff consisting of Mr. Howlett, another young 

 Englishman, and a number of native assistants, artists and 

 collectors. Since then, Messrs. Lefroy and Howlett have 



