THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



astic, and it is said to have done away with the pest. Again we 

 sent from Washington boxes of the parasite collected in different 

 parts of the United States to Dr. R. J. Tillyard at Nelson, New 

 Zealand, where they were cared for and liberated with enormous 

 success. Tillyard sent specimens to L. J. Newman in Australia 

 (at Perth), who also reports enthusiastically. The first sendings 

 to Japan have failed to take hold, but other experiments are on 

 the way. 



Thus Aphelinus malt has shown itself to be a potentially 

 cosmopolitan species. And it is a great joy to realize that I had 

 something to do with its spread. 



This general subject of natural control is an attractive one. 

 There have been many failures and much unnecessary waste of 

 money, but the great successes have far more than compensated 

 for this expense. And, judging from present reports, there is no 

 doubt that work of this kind will be carried on for a long time 

 to come. Many men whose names might be mentioned have 

 taken prominent part in this work. It seems to me, however, that 

 we should remember especially C. V. Riley, Albert Koebele, 

 Frederick Muir, and W. F. Fiske among the earlier ones. It is 

 true that George Compere was an indefatigable worker along 

 this line, but Compere was not a trained entomologist, and in 

 spite of his admirable persistence, coupled with his great enthusi- 

 asm, his labors as a whole did not add greatly to our knowledge. 



Although Albert Koebele was a great friend of mine, the 

 published mentions of this admirable man have, I think, been 

 over-enthusiastic. As I have stated previously, I am convinced 

 that an expression that has crept into the German entomological 

 literature — "the Koebele method" — as applied to natural control 

 is a mistake. Koebele was a keen-eyed collector and a sur- 

 passingly good preparator, but he was not a scholarly man. He 



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