THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



for a time, and later secured another man, M. Dillon, who largely 

 used soldiers on leave to collect caterpillars that had probably 

 been parasitized. 



In some of the out-of-the-way places in the Department of the 

 Bouches-du-Rhone, the peasants became greatly interested in this 

 work, and wondered why we were doing it. A very old peasant 

 explained it on the ground that it is a well-known fact that every 

 millionth caterpillar has a diamond in its head, and that this was 

 a somewhat laborious American way of accumulating a fortune. 



It was on my first visit to the Midi on this mission that I had 

 an unusual experience. I called on Dr. Siepi, at that time Head- 

 keeper of the Marseilles Zoological Gardens, and I found visiting 

 him no less a person than Mistral, the famous Provencal poet. 

 Siepi promised to collect for me predatory beetles that destroyed 

 the Gipsy Moth caterpillars, and Mistral showed much interest 

 in the plan. He asked me if I knew his friend, J. Henri Fabre, at 

 Serignan, and offered to introduce me to Fabre if I would go 

 down to Aries with him the next day. I did so, and thus first 

 met the "insect Homer" through the courtesy of the great poet. 



About four years after Fabre's death, I visited Serignan, in 

 company with Dr. Marchal and M. P. Vayssiere, and wrote an 

 account of the visit which was published under the title of "A 

 Pilgrimage to the Home of Henri Fabre." 



During those early years much of the search in Europe for 

 these particular parasites was done in France, and we owe much 

 to the encouragement and assistance given to us by the French 

 experts. There are many interesting incidents connected with our 

 French experiences. 



Along about 1909 it became obvious that nursery stock which 

 was being received in several parts of the United States direct 

 from France carried the eggs of the Gipsy Moth and nests 

 of the Brown-tail Moth directly into hitherto uninfested parts of 



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