FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



I have mentioned only a few of the many strikingly interest- 

 ing things connected with this celebration. On other occasions 

 I had appreciated the genius of the English in the organization 

 of scientific meetings and international congresses and cele- 

 brations, but never before had I met with such perfection of 

 arrangement and such cordial hospitality. 



A little later, in 1912, the Second International Congress of 

 Entomology was held in Oxford, England, under the presidency 

 of Professor E. B. Poulton. The entomologists had held an 

 international congress two years before at Brussels, at the time 

 of the International Exposition. I had been in Europe in 1909, 

 but for some reason I was unable to leave Washington in 1910. 

 However, I could not miss this one in England. In the early 

 summer I had been in many European countries, and in late 

 July I found myself in Brussels, visiting Professor A. Severin. 

 I remember that Horvath of Budapest dined with us on his 

 way to the Congress in England, and I remember also, with 

 great distinctness, the stormy passage from Ostend to Dover 

 in company with Severin and Ball. 



The big, genial and learned Poulton was an ideal presiding 

 officer, and naturally the English entomologists turned out in 

 force. One of the leading members of the Committee on 

 Organizations was G. B. Grosvenor, a young man of brilliant 

 promise, who the year before, had been a Carnegie student 

 in the United States. We who knew him prophesied great things 

 for his future, and those of us who had the future of applied 

 entomology at heart were much encouraged as we thought of 

 his possibilities. But after the Congress he went to the seaside 

 and was accidentally drowned. 



As I had been at the Cambridge celebration four years before, 

 I was quite prepared for the Oxford atmosphere. The wonderful 



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