372 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



Ormerod, the Honorary Consulting Entomologist to the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society of Great Britain, and this correspondence resulted in 

 the publication of a little book by Miss Ormerod entitled " Notes and 

 Descriptions of a Few Injurious Farm and Fruit Insects of South 

 Africa." This book was published in 1889. 



A very competent entomologist, Mr. Louis Peringuey, was con- 

 nected at that time with the South African Museum in Cape Town 

 and was employed by the Department of Agriculture as Entomo- 

 logical Adviser; but in these advisory functions he chiefly answered 

 correspondence, giving the names of the insects and the best remedies 

 known. Acting upon his advice, the Government attempted to stamp 

 out the grapevine Phylloxera by means of the bisulphide of carbon 

 treatment, but without success, and he resigned his office in 1893. 

 During this period the Director of the Botanic Garden at Cape Town, 

 Prof. P. MacOwan, also answered entomological questions for the 

 Government. Although an entomologist, he was a man of very wide 

 information, and his communications, most of them subsequently 

 published in the Agricultural Journal, showed him to be a clear-headed, 

 practical man. 



In 1893 the Department of Agriculture fully made up its mind that 

 it needed a good man at a livable salary to organize and carry on 

 sound work against insects. Knowing the advances that had been 

 made in the United States, they asked the Secretary for the Colonics 

 in London to correspond with me and to secure the best man possible 

 from this country. I approached several well known workers in the 

 United States, among them F. M. Webster and M. V. Slingerland. 

 and also James Fletcher in Canada. But the compensation offered 

 was not great enough to make the change desirable. I then looked for 

 a younger man whose financial needs were not so great, and was very 

 fortunate in finding C- P. Lounsbury, at that time graduate student 

 and instructor at the Massachusetts Agricultural College. He was 

 warmly recommended by Professor Fernald, and when I met him by 

 appointment in New York City, he appeared to have a well trained 

 mind and pleasing personality and the proper amount of energy and 

 ambition. I therefore recommended him to the Secretary for the 

 Colonies, and he took his post in Cape Town in 1895. Lounsbury's 

 work was excellent from the start, and be began at once to conduct 

 investigations of high value to the Colony and in fact to the whole of 

 South Africa. Governmental confidence in his ability was early 

 shown, and he was given ample assistance. He brought about legis- 

 lative action providing for nursery inspection and restriction on the 

 transportation of plants. Large sums were appropriated for locust 



