WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 253 



good friends. As a matter of fact. I know nothing personally about 

 their early relations ; yet it always seemed strange to me that they 

 should have drifted so far and so violently apart as they did in later 

 years. I visited both of them in 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1 908, and 

 although I did not see them together I noticed no differences of 

 opinion. 



In 1905 Silvestri was of great assistance to the United States, 

 since I consulted him, among other things, on the subject of intro- 

 ducing the European parasites of the gipsy moth into the United 

 States. As it happened, he had just heard of an outbreak of the gipsy 

 moth in Sardinia, and at once sent Leonardi to the spot, where he 

 collected and shipped to the United States a large number of the 

 puparia of one of the important Tachinid parasites of gipsy moth 

 larvae. 



That year, in Florence. I found Berlese assisted by Del Guercio 

 and Ribaga, and just married to his first wife, a very beautiful young 

 Italian girl. He could still speak nothing but Italian. Del Guercio, 

 however, spoke excellent French ; and Ribaga, who had studied in 

 Germany, knew German. So they acted indift'erently as interpreters 

 between Berlese and myself. Berlese understood enough German 

 and enough French so that he could catch the drift of what the others 

 were saying, and he was very keen on having his ideas properly 

 explained to me. First he would tell Del Guercio to put it into French, 

 and then, dissatisfied with his work, would turn impatiently to Ribaga 

 and ask him to try it in German. While I thought that I understood 

 what he was driving at, I evidently missed some of his points, because 

 he became greatly annoyed at his inability to give me his full meaning. 



Berlese about this time or a little earlier had a heated controversy 

 with the bird lovers of Italy in regard to legislation they were try- 

 ing to secure and enforce regarding the destruction of birds. Berlese 

 insisted that birds were of little account in the checking of injurious 

 insects, but that the important enemies of such insects were parasitic 

 and predatory insects and lizards which abound in south Italy. He 

 appealed to me for my opinion, and quoted my views in one of his 

 longest papers. 



Silvestri knew a little French the first time I met him ; and betore 

 I saw him the second time he had begun to speak English. Since 

 that time he has been a great traveler, has visited most European 

 countries, Africa, the Pacific islands, the Orient, and the United 

 States, thus becoming cjuite a cosmopolitan and a man who can talk 

 more or less in several languages. Berlese, however, seemed less 



