3 



SIX-FOOTED PUBLIC QUESTIONS. 



Some of the Inter-relations betzveen Insects and the Community. 



(An illustrated address delivered before the Public Questions 

 Club of Honolulu, Nov. 7, 1911.) 



It is my purpose this evening, in addressing the Public Ques- 

 tions Club, to briefly indicate a few of the innumerable relation- 

 ships that exist between the social community and that marvelous 

 group of creatures which we know as insects. This may be con- 

 sidered as the introduction to a detailed discussion of our insect 

 problems, which I hope will follow this paper. Some lantern 

 illustrations will aid in elucidating such matters as life-histories, 

 coloration, and structural details. 



One need not apologize in presentmg insects as a public ques- 

 tion. Indeed, they have already intruded themselves as such. The 

 3'ellow fever mosquito, the Mediterranean fruit fly, and others 

 have been prominent subjects of conversation and comment, over 

 the coffee cups as well as in the office. They have extended their 

 range from the narrow confines of technical treatises and experi- 

 ment station bulletins, and now array themselves in the conspicu- 

 ous places of the daily press, and journey by cablegram from 

 Washington and back again. 



Insects have always been a public question. Time was, when 

 man lived in a cave, wore a bear-skin, and carried a stone club, 

 that certain insects constituted a very personal and painful ques- 

 tion, nearer than clothes, and shed with much more difficulty. 

 Perhaps one of man's first asseverations of his dominion over 

 nature was his freeing of his body from various insect pests. 

 These, having chosen external regions of his person as their 

 habitat, could be easily eradicated by means of personal cleanli- 

 ness. It is a striking commentary on the progress of the human 

 race as a whole to note that a very large portion of the human 

 race has not yet attained even this low stage of comfortable 

 existence. 



As an "aside" it may be said that civilized man himself is just 

 upon the threshold of realization of the enormous battle ahead 

 if he would wholly free himself of the devastating ravages of 

 those microscopic plants called bacteria, which may frequent all 

 parts of his natural anatomy. 



To return to insects, we are nov/ entering the era of social 

 consciousness wherein it is realized that insects are no longer per- 

 sonal problems. They can be fought successfully only through 

 commercial method. The boy with pediculosis (which is merely 

 the polite scientific way of saying fleas), has no right to infect a 

 school room; the dairyman and the butcher dare not permit the 

 filthy house-fly, which is engendered in dung, and which carries 

 typhoid, to pollute their wares ; Mr. Blank is not acting fairly 



