398 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 



rote how little attention has been paid in the past to the insect prob- 

 lem, except for occasional great emergencies like swarms of migra- 

 tory grasshoppers, and at the same time how the problem has been 

 growing. Undoubtedly, wherever a center of human civiliz:\tion had 

 its beginnings, just as soon as food began to be grown on a sufficient 

 scale to feed many people, certain injurious insects began to increase 

 in number. New opportunities for their increase were being offered 

 to them — their increase was really being encouraged. If we had the 

 records of lost civilizations, no doubt these losses by insects would 

 appear ; and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that insects 

 have aided in the destruction of past civilizations — such, for ex- 

 ample, as those that existed in Central America. Little attention 

 was paid to insects, however, except when great outbreaks occurred, 

 until within the last 170 years; and then for more than 100 years 

 insects were studied by a few men here and there simply as a part 

 of the animal kingdom. They were brought into collections, and 

 classified and named. Their study, however, was considered a trivial 

 pursuit. Within the past 70 years, however, a new type of entomol- 

 ogist has appeared — the economic entomologist, and there has grown 

 up rapidly an increased appreciation of the importance of the study 

 of insects; and the economic entomologists have been increasing 

 rapidly in number, particularly during the present century. The 

 United States has led in this work, and perhaps still leads in the 

 number of persons engaged in entomological research with its eco- 

 nomic applications distinctly in view. But other countries are 

 rapidly coming to the front. Entomological problems have seemed 

 more important in the newer countries. The dominions and colonies 

 of the great British Empire have, therefore, felt a greater need for 

 entomological research than most other parts of the globe, with the 

 exception of the United States, and there has been built up in the 

 British Empire many strong research bodies centered in an Imperial 

 Bureau in London. 



But possibly it is not the dramatic outbreaks of a comparatively 

 few spectacularly injurious species that bring about the greatest loss. 

 Take agriculture in Europe, for example, where, on account of the 

 small holdings and close methods of cultivation, these great out- 

 breaks rarely get a start. It has become the custom to estimate a 

 normal crop for a certain piece of land. But it seems to the writer 

 that the so-called normal crop would be greatly enhanced if all un- 

 noticed insect damage were eliminated. There are undoubtedly min- 

 ute unnoticed insects that are constantly lowering productiveness; 

 there are millions of tiny jaws and beaks gaining nourishment from 

 cultivated plants. There must be some way of destroying these crea- 

 tures and of thus minimizing this damage. 



