FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



were received in Massachusetts, coming from Transylvania, from 

 the Hartz Mountains, from Switzerland, and Northwest France. 

 I feel reasonably convinced that the practical disappearance of the 

 Brown-tail Moth as a pest in New England is due, partly at least, 

 to my first interview with this charming and enlightened man, 

 who was at that time at least thought by his contemporaries 

 in the Museum in Budapest to be "not a scientific man, but rather 

 of the farmer class." 



Those years of annual visits to Europe were full of interest and 

 of unusual episodes. I remember very well that in 1905 (the 

 year when Paul Marchal was president of the Entomological 

 Society of France) I addressed the Society in Paris on the gen- 

 eral subject of our need of these European parasites in the States. 

 What I said was published in the Journal of the Society, and this 

 met the eye of Rene Oberthiir of Rennes. As this splendid man 

 told me afterwards, he feared that the members of the Society 

 would not be able to do anything for me, and so he at once 

 offered me his services. He and his brother Charles were the 

 heads of the great Imprimerie Oberthiir of Paris and Rennes, 

 which for years did much of the printing for the French govern- 

 ment. During the winter, in the vicinity of Rennes, he had no 

 less than ten thousand nests of the Brown-tail collected and sent 

 to the United States. He did this entirely as an act of courtesy, 

 and would accept no compensation. The following year one of 

 Marchal's assistants (Andre Vuillet) was employed by us, and 

 stationed at the Oberthiirs in Rennes, where he studied parasites 

 and sent over large shipments. Vuillet was killed in the first year 

 of the World War, but his widow took up his work, and was 

 one of Marchal's laboratory assistants, for some years, when she 

 married again. She is now living in Algeria. 



Still, through Rene Oberthiir, the work was continued in the 

 South of France. I took up one of his collectors, Harold Powell, 



[96] 



