PREFACE 



Large as this hook has grown to he, I am very conscious of its 

 omissions, and as I send it to the printer I am fully convinced that I 

 have not done justice to certain countries and to certain individuals. 

 Aside from North America, I have not traveled much, although I have 

 visited nearly all of the European countries except Greece, Rumania, 

 Denmark. Sweden, and Norway. It is true that many entomologists 

 from the British and Dutch colonies, from South American countries 

 and from the Orient have visited Washington ; that our correspon- 

 dence covers the whole world ; and that the Bureau library is supposed 

 to l)e very complete. In spite of all this, however, I have not been able 

 to satisfy myself and surely will not have satisfied a number of good 

 workers in certain other countries. To these I ofTer humble apologies. 

 I have written hundreds of letters asking for further information ; 

 but in some cases I must have chosen my correspondents unfortu- 

 nately. Perhaps they were dead ; perhaps they were ill ; perhajxs (as 

 is undoubtedly the case with some people) they preferred other kinds 

 of work to letter-writing. One thing, however, is certain : that criti- 

 cisms of this publication will be printed and that the next historian 

 of economic entomology will have an easier task. 



OLD EUROPEAN WRITERS ON ENTOMOLOGY 



I have a reverence for the fine old European writers on entomology. 

 It has been with me from my early days. Reading only English, 

 French, and Latin as a youth, I read Kirby and Spence at first, and 

 Rennie's " Insect Architecture " and the English translation of 

 Figuier's '' Insect World " and the translation of Van Bruyssel's 

 " Population of an Old Pear Tree " and the Rev. James G. Wood 

 and Duncan's adaptation in English of E. Blanchard's " Meta- 

 morphoses des Insectes " ; then Reaumur and Lyonnet, and so on 

 into the more technical works of the masters of classifications in 

 several languages which I learned to translate on the basis of my col- 

 lege Latin, French, Italian, and German, until I thought of the great 

 old European workers in the museums and universities as a race of 

 supermen. I have never lost this feeling. 



Looking back from this distance, I appreciate these men and their 



work more than ever. All of them studied insects from choice. They 



were fascinated by their beautiful and strange forms and by their 



marvelous habits and lives. They worked arduously and with indomi- 



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