FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



London, then to Paris, and on to Zurich, where I met old 

 friends and made new ones. 



The Zurich Congress of Entomologists was large and en- 

 thusiastic, and I was not surprised, but very glad, to find that 

 once more there was an increase in the interest in applied 

 entomology. This was shown not only by the character of the 

 papers, but by the increased attendance at the meetings of 

 that section. 



In 1927, having to go to eastern Europe (Poland, Czecho- 

 slovakia, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Jugoslavia) on an 

 official mission, I took credentials from the Biological and 

 Entomological Societies of Washington as a delegate to the 

 International Congress of Zoology that was to be held at Buda- 

 pest that summer. Here again there was abundant evidence 

 that there was a great increase of interest among the scientific 

 men in questions of applied zoology, and especially applied 

 entomology. It was a great congress. The president. Dr. G. 

 Horvath, already eighty years of age, was an entomologist, 

 and during the days of the Phylloxera scare had done important 

 work of a distinctly economic character. One of the most in- 

 teresting of the general lectures was given by Professor Koma- 

 rek of Prague on the airplane dusting of great spruce forests 

 in Czechoslovakia against a disastrous outbreak of the Nun 

 Moth. Then, too, the first session of the section on economic 

 zoology (I was the chairman) was largely attended, and it 

 was noticeable that nearly all of the papers read at this session 

 and at subsequent meetings of this section were of an entomo- 

 logical nature. The final dinner, given at a great new hotel 

 across the Danube, was attended by more than a thousand 

 guests, and was one of the most brilliant functions of the kind 

 that I have ever attended. 



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