80 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



I have limited my story to the house-boat trip, and cannot take time 

 to describe the horticultural and agricultural conditions of North China, 

 which, in fact, I have briefly discussed elsewhere. 



QuAiNTANCE : I should like to ask Mr. Marlatt if anything is' being 

 done in entomology in China at all ; if there are any Chinese entomolo- 

 gists or collectors in China that he knows of. What is the status of the 

 science in China ? 



Marlatt: I know very little about that matter fiom the Chinese 

 side. It is very diflicult to get at Chinese knowledge or practices except 

 by long residence there. Undoubtedly the Chinese horticulturists do 

 something for the control of various insect pests. As a rule, however, 

 their interest in insects is chiefly from the standpoint of medicine, and 

 most insects are considered useful in the control of disease, their 

 ideas being the reverse of views now obtaining in this country, where 

 insects are now known to often be the transmitters of disease. If the old 

 saying be true, however, that " the hair of the dog cures the bite," the 

 Chinese have plausible grounds for their beliefs that insects will cure 

 disease ! 



The curious packages of May-beetle larvie with fungus growing out of 

 them, illustrations of which most of you have seen, come from this region 

 and the jirovinces of the Upper Yang-tse. This fungus, Coj-ydyceps 

 Chinensis, is much esteemed as medicine, and is described and figured in 

 Vol. IV., Insect Life, p. 217. 



Whenever I was seen collecting insects by Chinamen, they immedi- 

 ately supposed I was getting the insects for medicine ; that seemed to be 

 the common idea among Chinese everywhere, and they immediately 

 wanted to know what I was going to use them for, and undoubtedly I 

 could have started the use of insects for any variety of purposes in the way 

 of " cure-alls " if I had felt so inclined. The Chinese have a large no- 

 menclature of insects — that is, they have names for all the common 

 species of insects — and they have treatises relating to the culture of the 

 silkworm, but I have never seen any treatise relating to insects other 

 than the silkworm. 



Hopkins : Mr. President, I might say in my own ex[)loration, not of 

 China, but of Chinatown, San Francisco, I was very much interested in 

 the kinds of insects they used for medicine. I noted especially a very large 

 pupa shell of a Cicada, quite a large bottle full of them. I think they used 

 them as an antidote for rheumatism, or something of that kind. I saw 



