THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



ceived instructions from headquarters, but they helped the gov- 

 ernment very inteUigently and very greatly. An expert of the 

 Bureau, Mr. J. N. Summers, was caught in Germany at the 

 beginning of the World War and got home with difficulty. 

 The war, naturally, stopped all of the importing work. But of 

 late years it has been resumed to some extent, and skilled experts 

 of the Bureau have been maintained in Eastern Europe, to rear 

 and send over promising parasites that we had not received in 

 sufficient quantity before the war. For some years a laboratory 

 for this purpose was maintained by our government in Budapest, 

 and such work has also been done in Poland, Czechoslovakia 

 and Jugoslavia. 



While nothing spectacular has been accomplished by this intro- 

 duction of the parasites of the Gipsy Moth and the Brown-tail 

 Moth, there is absolutely no doubt that the introduced parasites 

 have aided very greatly indeed in our fight against these pests. 



I tried to get into the World War, although far past the age for 

 active service. I felt sure that I could do something as a liaison 

 officer, because of my knowledge of the French language and 

 my personal acquaintance with many leaders among the French 

 scientific men. 



After the war there was one of these parasite introductions of 

 a reversed kind, that is, from America to Europe, instead of from 

 Europe to America, in which I played a small but direct part. 

 There is, native to the United States, a plant-louse that lives 

 upon the roots of apple and pear. It is a little bluish creature 

 covered with white stringy wax that gives it a woolly appearance. 

 It is known over here as the Woolly Root-louse of the apple 

 {Schizoneura or Erisoma lanigera) . One hundred and fifty years 

 ago or more this insect was accidentally imported through com- 

 merce into England, and by like means it spread later to France 



[109] 



