WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 185 



and public speaker enabled Canada to keep herself abreast of the 

 times, largely by the adoption and assimilation of American methods. 



The writer considered Fletcher as one of his warmest personal 

 friends. He always attended the meetings of the American Associa- 

 tion of Economic Entomologists. In fact the two of us during a 

 never-to-be-forgotten summer in Washington drafted the original 

 constitution of this organization which was effected in fact at Toronto 

 in 1889. Fletcher's visit to Washington during that particular summer 

 was a great joy to himself and to the men here who met him for the 

 first time. He had never been so far south before, and every insect 

 and every flower and every tree and almost every person he met inter- 

 ested him enormously. He would stop colored boys on the street and 

 hold long talks with them. He would spend an hour looking over the 

 bark of a shade-tree. It was almost impossible to get him home to 

 dinner. His enthusiasm was infectious. Every one loved him at 

 sight, and it is no wonder that when he died in 1908 he was mourned 

 not only over the whole Dominion of Canada but throughout the 

 United States. 



So competent a man was Fletcher and so great was his personal 

 influence, and so completely did he adapt himself to the situation as 

 it existed in his country, that the necessity for additional funds for 

 entomological research in Canada was by no means as obvious as 

 it would have been had he l)een a man of different character — the 

 people were so satisfied with Fletcher and what he was doing. 



On the death of Doctor Fletcher in 1908, following an operation, 

 the authorities evidently devoted serious consideration to the choice 

 of his successor. The question was indeed a serious one, since no 

 one could expect to fill the place that Fletcher had won in the minds 

 and in the hearts of his constituency. Arthur Gibson, who had been 

 his sole entomological assistant, a well-trained entomologist and an 

 indefatigable worker, was thought to be too young. The Ministry 

 corresponded with the Chief of the Bureau of Entomology at Wash- 

 ington, asking for advice as to possible American entomologists who 

 might be induced to take the place. There was a feeling, however, 

 that the Dominion should rely on the old country as much as jxtssible 

 in such matters, and in consequence the man who received the ap- 

 pointment was Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt, at that time connected with the 

 University of Manchester, who had done some sound original 

 research work in entomology and who was said to be a most promis- 

 ing man. Many people were disappointed when the announcement of 

 this appointment was made, and Hewitt surely confronted a diffi- 

 cult situation when he came to Canada and Fletcher's old friends 

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