92 THE REPORT OF THE [ No. 19 



ever, other difficulties will aarround us. He went to a great deal of pains to obtaia from 

 Professor Morgan an egg parasite of Murgantia, and after getting it established, it was 

 swept out of existence during the winter of 1898-99, and no good has come from the in- 

 troduction. He was also of the opinion that a great deal could be done by an exchange 

 of experiences with insecticides, such as had taken place in the morning session, as insect- 

 icides seldom have the same effect in different portions of the country. It had always 

 seemed to him that the work of the economic entomologist was very largely to work out 

 life histories, and after he had done this and had found out methods that could be used to 

 destroy the insect his duty ends and the work of the horticulturist and agriculturist be 

 gins. He did not think it ought to be necessary for an entomologist to make of himself a 

 mechanical, hydraulic, or civil engineer. 



Prof. Fernald referred to the remark just made by Mr. Webster to the effect that no 

 two men saw the same thing in the same lights and said that tne same was often true in 

 listening to an address, for generally no two men got the same ideas from it. For him 

 other parts of the address than those mentioned by other speakers had presented them- 

 selves with particular force, and especially those with reference to collections in connec- 

 tion with the insectary or entomological work of any kind. It seemed to him that the 

 work of a station whether connected with a college or not, is most emphatically educa- 

 tional, for even if it be not educational to students or visitors, it is certainly educational 

 to the workers at the station themselves, and by continually adding to such a collection 

 they are adding to their education as well as to the education of the residents of the 

 region. He had thus far found a great demand for collections rather different from those 

 ordinarily met with. The ordinary collection contains the rare insects as frequently as 

 it does the destructive ones, and by that he meant to uphold the question that was raised 

 in the address with reference to how many of the common insects could be found in dif- 

 ferent collections. He suggested that, so far as his own experience goes, there are too 

 few collections in which all stages are preserved in connection with the work that insects 

 do. A large part of the material that he receives in Massachusetts does not contain any 

 insect whatever, but simply a sample of the work of the insect which has either escaped 

 from the box or was never inclosed. The problem in such cases is to tell what has done 

 the damage by the damage itself. He found that his greatest help was to preserve speci- 

 mens of the insect and of the work it was doing, and he used such specimens in the iden- 

 tification of material sent in, perhaps fifty times as often as any other specimens. Our 

 collections, in his opinion, should be amplified along the lines of early stages and the 

 work done by the insects, and such collections will appeal strons;]y to the people. The 

 whole address was interesting and suggestive, but it was this feature which interested 

 him most. He had also had experience with the Murgantia parasite obtained from 

 Louisiana by the kindness of Mr. Morgan, and while he was now fortunate in not having 

 Murgantia to deal with, it was a great relief, while searching around, to find that there 

 was some one who could assist him, and he thought anything in that line should be en- 

 couraged, for when a man wants a thing of that sort he wants it badly. 



Mr. Johnson said there was another important suggestion implied in the address, 

 and that was the commercial side of entomology — if the term might be permitted. We 

 have enough systematic entomologists at the present time, and perhaps enough economic 

 entomologists, but we do need another lot of men who will take up purely the oecological 

 side ; that is, they must study conditions in the field. The day ia coming, and is not far 

 distant, when our great commercial railroads and some of our greatest manufacturing 

 concerns, such as canneries, will employ oecological entomologists just as they employ 

 engineers and other skilled labor. He felt quite certain that this would come about, and 

 that a new field would open to young men especially, who would take up this commercial 

 side of the entomological problem. To give an illustration of what he meant, he said he 

 would try to bring this out in a paper which he would read on the folio «ring day on the 

 subject of the pea louse in Maryland, which has destroyed more than $4,000,000 worth 

 of green peas along the Atlantic coast this season. 



When insect injury touches the pockets of the producers to that extent they are 

 going to look about for the men who have a knowledge of the insects. It means money 

 to them. He had been in consultation with some of the high officials of one of oar prin- 

 cipal railroads, and felt certain that the day is not far distant when these roads will em- 

 ploy men to take up the entomological study and development of the territory through 



