Sq To Miss Nast he sent a more interesting account of his 

 activities (July 23, 1903) : 



My letter-writing is most difficult. I have to write to four 

 different places in the United States and four different places 

 in India. Still, I am always anxious for the incoming mail. 

 I hope you remember the good old text — "it is far better 

 to give, than to git." Martin wrote from Southern Cali- 

 fornia to-day. ... he is my best friend — even if I am a 

 "morphologist." 



Thus he liked always to twit himself; or to sponsor an oppo- 

 site point of view. Interested in every new antiseptic, he was 

 himself, all for the employment of aluminium acetate or zinc 

 sulphate; the best intestinal astringent he declared to be the 

 second steeping of tea leaves; and cognizant of the virtues of 

 old-fashioned remedies in general, he rather liked to be called 

 a therapeutic nihilist. 



He continued: 



What do you think I am working at now? I have been requested 

 to probe the "locust problem!" The locusts are a great pest 

 in these islands often leaving great tracts of land as bare as a 

 desert. They enter even the suburbs of Manila in great swarms. 

 I have seen four such swarms since we came here. They appear 

 literally in clouds. It is a great sight to be near and to watch 

 the millions as each flies close behind the other, the whole cloud 

 circling and streaming along. It reminds one of eddies in a 

 river. 



The South African locust fungus has been tried here with 

 variable success. I am to determine whether it is of any use at 

 all or if its efficacy can be increased, or if some other way of 

 destroying the locusts can be found. I am not encouraged by 

 the prospects, for so many good workers have spent years at 

 this problem and without success. Locusts make such uninter- 

 esting patients too. . . . 



The month had brought him good family news. Not only 

 those in India but the rest, domiciled in the United States 

 between the Missouri and Allegheny rivers, reported them- 

 selves well. To which his stanch and favorite sister Lillian, 

 now married to the Reverend Frank McCuskey (her playmate 



