348 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



States or Australia, if the people were not gifted with energy and 

 foresight or if they failed to read the lesson that India should teach 

 them. 



With its range of climate, the insect fauna of India is richer than 

 that of Europe or Australia. Entomologists knew this long ago. As 

 early as 1798 Fabricius had described or recorded more than a thou- 

 sand species of insects from India, and during the next century the 

 English collected and described many additional thousands. Good 

 entomologists of other nations later, like the Frenchmen Amyot and 

 Serville for example, developed the taxonomic side of Indian ento- 

 mology until the region became famous for its profusion of new and 

 strange forms. Catalogues of different groups of Indian insects were 

 published by Atkinson, Moore, Cotes, Swinhoe, and others. But for 

 a very long time little was known of the biology of the different 

 forms, and i)ractically no attention was paid to the economic im- 

 portance of entomology. 



The Indian Museum at Calcutta, a Government institution, among 

 other things brought together a collection of insects, and as early 

 as 1885 the Director, Wood-Mason, published reports on the tea-bug 

 of Assam and on a pest to the rice plant in Burma. The Museum 

 from that time became the center of information on injurious insects. 

 In 1888 Mr. E. C. Cotes was in charge of the entomological collec- 

 tions of the Museum, and began the publication of an official series 

 entitled " Notes on Economic Entomology." In the early part of that 

 year I\lr. Cotes prepared two reports, one on the wheat and rice wee- 

 vil and the other on insecticides, and he was sent to an agricultural 

 conference at Delhi where arrangements were made l)y the various 

 provincial governments to send rc]:)orts and specimens to the Museum 

 from officials concerned with agriculture in all parts of India. The 

 task of collating the results and also of carrying on such investiga- 

 tions as could be conducted at headquarters was entrusted to Mr. 

 Cotes aided by a staff of six office assistants of his own selection. 

 Circular letters were sent out to all parts of the country, and large 

 numbers of reports and specimens soon began to come iiL The results 

 were ])ublished from time to time and freely circulated. In the next 

 few years the identity of several hundred of the more important 

 injurious si)ecies affecting the crops of India was ascertained ; the 

 nature of the damage occasioned by them became known, and their 

 life histories in a large number of cases had been traced out. Infor- 

 mation had been continuously supplied to officials and planters as to 

 the nature of their insect pests, and the more promising methods of 

 treatment. Many experiments had been tried with a view to the 



