

J 900] 



Royal Society of Canada. 



ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. 



Popular Science Lecture, 1900. 



' One of the most enjoyable features of the annual meeting of 

 the Royal Society of Canada this year wa^- the Popular Science 

 Lecture delivered on the evening of May 31st by Dr. Leland O, 

 Howard, the United States Entomologist, of Washington. The 

 lecturer is so well known as a leading and accurate authority on 

 practical entomology that it is unnecessary to refer to that feature 

 of the lecture. Few of our members, however, had previously had 

 the privilege of meeting Dr. Howard and hearing him speak. For 

 over an hour the large audience which filled the lecture hall of the 

 Normal School was charmed with the masterly way in which the 

 subject was presented and the beautiful slides with which it was 

 illustrated were explained. Dr. Howard is a fluent and easy 

 speaker, and from his perfect acquaintance with his subject he was 

 able to convince his hearers of the importance of a knowledge ot 

 the life-histories of common insects and the bearing ol this know- 

 ledge in many unthought-of ways, upon the ordinary affairs of 

 everyday life. 



In introducing his subject the lecturer spoke of the wide com- 

 mercial distribution of injurious insects, which, in these modern 

 days of rapid ocean voyages, is becoming so pronounced that 

 quarantine services are being established in different countries in 

 the endeavour to bar out injurious insects from abroad. As an 

 example, he described briefly the recent carriage of the San Jose 

 Scale upon nursery stock and fruits to many different quarters of 

 the world, and mentioned the legislation which had been effected 

 in different countries from this incitive. It was his purpose, how- 

 ever, he said, not to dwell so much upon this aspect of economic 

 entomology, as to show the good which could be accomplished by 

 well planned introductions of beneficial insects from one country 

 to another. He told once more the well-known story of the in- 

 troduction of the Lady-bird beetle Novius cardinalts from Australia 

 by the United States Department of Agriculture, and the resulting 

 • saving of the citrous crops of California which had been threatened 

 with extinction by the White or Fluted Scale, an insect which had 



