FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



Caccini explained the campaign then going on in North Italy. 

 He predicted that the Itahans, i£ speedily supplied with ammu- 

 nition and cannon, would drive the Austrians back to the moun- 

 tains about the first quarter o£ the winter and would annihilate 

 them in the mountain passes. He said that it would be an expe- 

 rience similar to the retreat of Napoleon I from Moscow. After- 

 wards, we stood for an hour and a half listening to a discussion 

 between the Italians on social conditions in Italy as compared 

 with those in America, with especial reference to the army com- 

 position and support. The interesting point was pushed that the 

 Italians did not need men, since they had eight million, but 

 only munitions, guns and supplies. They said that more men 

 from the allies would be embarrassing, since it takes twice as 

 much food to support a soldier of any other nation as it does 

 an Italian. Then, too, every Italian can cook. A lot of other 

 points were brought out, which I did not quite get, as I under- 

 stood only about every third word of their rapid Italian speech. 

 Another interesting man I met at the Club during this general 

 period was Dr. L. P. DeBussy, the charming Hollander of v/hom 

 I have written elsewhere. He had travelled extensively with me 

 in the States in 1910, and had then gone back to Sumatra. In 

 May, 1917, he had received an appointment as director of the 

 Zoological section of the Colonial Museum in Amsterdam. He 

 had started from Sumatra in late August, arrived in San Fran- 

 cisco about the first of October, and found there that if he took 

 the next transcontinental express he might arrive in New York 

 in time to get a vessel for Holland. So he came on without 

 buying any clothes, not even a felt hat in place of his straw one. 

 When he arrived in New York he found that no steamer had 

 left, and that no one knew when one would leave. He was vig- 

 orously guyed on the streets of New York on account of his 

 unseasonable headgear. The steamship people told him that he 



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