44 



When a collector once gets the habit of accumulating a large number of specimens of 

 everything he sees, he very soon gets careless about putting them away while they are in 

 good condition, and has not time to make the proper notes. 



Not only should notes be taken of what we ourselves have seen, but much time'will 

 be saved if an index book be kept of all literature which passes through our hands. 

 Even in this we must protect ourselves. The time of an enthusiastic entomologist is 

 necessarily short, and he has not time to " look through " books on his work to see if they 

 are good, with the idea that he will remember where to get the contained information at 

 some future time. All reading must be done earnestly and keenly as though we should 

 never again have an opportunity of seeing the book in question. Let all our labour be 

 work, not play. I think it is John Ruskin wrho defines work as systematic effort with 

 a definite end in view, while unsystematic efibrt, no matter how severe the labour may 

 be, if it have no definite end, is merely play. In the index book should be entered a 

 reference to the page where any facts which strike us as useful are to be found. Some 

 restraint will be necesaary, when this work is once taken in hand systematically, not to 

 index what is not useful, as well as that which is. It is very easy to get a mania for 

 indexing, and then the gems we are picking out may soon be lost amongst less valuable 

 matter. Whatever we have to read or whatever we have to see, let us give it our fullest 

 possible attention with the idea that at some future time the information may be useful. 

 A tale that is told about Henry Ward Beecher illustrates this very well, and is probably 

 known to many of you. Upon one occasion he was driving in the country and his 

 horse cast a shoe. He had always made it a rule of his life that whenever he had to see 

 anything done he gave it his fullest attention, with the idea that at some time he might 

 require the knowledge so obtained. He had frequently stood by whilst his horse was 

 being shod, and consequently, when after a time, he reached a country village and found 

 that the smith was away from home, the tale goes, he felt so confident of the knowledge 

 he had acquired from watching carefully other horseshoes made that he lighted the tire, 

 fashioned and finished a shoe, and shod his horse. He drove on about ten miles and 

 reached another village. Upon passing the forge of the village blacksmith he thought it 

 wise to have his work examined, so went in and explained the circumstances and asked 

 the man to see if all were well. The smith looked critically at the shoe, examined it 

 from every point of view, looked at the nails and the way in which they were 

 clinched, and then raising himself up, said : " Look here, mister, if you made that 

 shoe yourself and put it on, as you say, you had better give up preaching and take to 

 smithing." 



Gentlemen, I thank you for the kind hearing you have given me, and I trust we may 

 have a pleasant and useful meeting. 



Mr. OsBORN, in discussing the address, thought that the subject suggested by the 

 President, of the great importance of careful statistics, could hardly be overestimated. 

 He moved the appointment of a committee of three to operate with Mr. Fletcher to pre- 

 pare, if possible, some careful statistics as to the amount of insect damage, and as to the 

 benefit resulting from the work of economic entomologists. 



Mr. Riley indorsed the sug>estion. He had been greatly gratified with the address 

 and with the many valuable ideas which the president had put forward. Most entomo- 

 logists who bad treated of the losses occasioned by insects to agriculture have followed 

 in the wake of Walsh, who had stated a quarter of a century ago, upon general estimates 

 that the annual loss from injurious insects in America was $300,000,000. Since his 

 time the values in crops had greatly increased and the proportionate injury should have 

 also increased ; but we must take into consideration the advance in economic entomo- 

 logical knowledge, which has greatly reduced the proportionate loss. The loss is at most 

 a relative thing, and we must always remember that with a decrease in the amount of 



