THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



brought his manuscript with him to the Entomological Con- 

 gress at Oxford in 1912 for me to read. The World War, how- 

 ever, came on so soon thereafter that his translation was not 

 pubHshed until 1917. He has recently written me that it was 

 used as a reader in the public schools, and that very dilapidated 

 copies are still to be seen in the school libraries. 



Why did the world endure the housefly so long? I remember 

 a meeting of the American Civic Association in Washington. 

 Dr. Woods Hutchinson of New York talked to the meeting 

 about the housefly. He said very bad things about it and com- 

 mended the Association on its strenuous efforts to promote the 

 warfare against it. At the conclusion of his lecture, a dear old 

 lady arose in the audience and said, with breathless indignation, 

 "In the name of the women of the United States and of that of 

 the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I protest 

 against the wholesale murder of these defenseless creatures." 

 Perhaps that was one of the reasons. 



But I must not leave the subject of the housefly without telling 

 one more story. In the early autumn of 1912 an international 

 congress of hygiene and demography was held at Washington 

 and was attended by many eminent sanitarians from all parts 

 of the world. There was a section on the Zoological Aspects of 

 Sanitation, presided over by the late Dr. Herman P. Biggs — at 

 that time, I think. Chairman of the Board of Health of the 

 City of New York, and a very eminent man. I had known him 

 when he was a litde boy at Trumansburg, New York, and I 

 think that I was the first one to interest him in natural history 

 studies. My house guest at the time was Dr. George H. F. 

 Nuttall, a famous parasitologist and head of the Quick Labora- 

 tory of Cambridge University, England. We went together to 

 this zoological section. Dr. Mesnil of the Institut Pasteur at 

 Paris was to have been the principal speaker, but for some 



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