THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



Sixth Street, and as it happened was only a short distance behind 

 President Garfield and Secretary Blaine when the President was 

 shot in the back by the crazy office-seeker, Jules Guiteau. The 

 station was crowded at the time, and many people did not realize 

 the situation. My train was due to start, and I felt that I would 

 only make one more in the mass of curious people that would 

 get in the way, and so I boarded the train and left for Chicago. 

 On my return from that trip I was sent south, this time to 

 investigate damage done by insects to the rice crop on certain 

 of the sea islands off the coast of Georgia. This was a fascinating 

 trip. I was the house guest of Colonel Scriven in Savannah, and 

 the trip was full of delightful and interesting experiences. It 

 was also successful from the scientific point of view, and I 

 accumulated a lot of notes, afterwards published in one of 

 Riley's reports, which constituted our first authentic information 

 concerning the insect enemies of this important crop. 



One evening, sitting on the veranda of the Scriven mansion 

 in Savannah with the Colonel and his wife, eating delicious 

 rice-birds on toast (a heavenly dish), Mrs. Scriven, a beautiful 

 and charming lady, laughed girlishly when I asked about the 

 Colonel's military tide. She told me that he had been in com- 

 mand of the defenses of Savannah. They had expected an attack 

 by the water-front, so the Colonel had spent many weeks filling 

 up the channel of the Savannah River with all sorts of obstruc- 

 tions. Finally, however, the army of General Sherman captured 

 the city by an overland attack. Then she said with malicious 

 glee, "The only thing that the Colonel's obstructions in the 

 river ever did was to wreck one of his own rice-boats coming 

 back from the plantations some years after the war!" 



I was about to state that this was my first trip south since 

 my journey down the Potomac to Portsmouth. But there was 



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