1919 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 75 



Great Insect Ecologists 



By the term " ecologist " is meant here a student of the habits and life histories 

 of insects. Most of the men wliose names have already been mentioned contributed 

 very materially to our knowledge of insect habits, but these contributions were 

 incidental to the study of anatomy. 



Francesco Eedi, the Florentine scholar, poet, physician and naturalist (1626- 

 1697) did much to shatter the dogma of spontaneous generation which, as we 

 have already seen, had been accepted as the doctrine of the Church, and the 

 scientific world for nearly 2,000 years. Aristotle had accepted the theory to explain 

 the origin of many of the " bloodless " or invertebrate animals, but had excepted 

 the higher animals. Eedi proved by experiment that if the flesh of a dead animal 

 were protected carefully from intruding insects no grubs or insects developed in it. 



He was not so successful in solving the problem of the generation of parasites 

 and gall insects where he was forced to the conclusion, in spite of contrary con- 

 victions, that these insects arose spontaneously. The results of his researches 

 were published in 1668 under the title of " Experiments on the Generation of 

 Insects." His translator says that " The title of the work gives little hint of 

 its varied contents. It is a formal letter grown into a book showing the attitude 

 of seventeenth-century Italians towards their surroundings, and affording a clear 

 insight into their conception of nature. The opinions of priests, philosophers, 

 and poets of the period on natural phenomena of perennial interest, and here set 

 down with grave simplicity, enlivened by occasional humorous comment, and many 

 elaborate quotations from the classics are inserted as proof or refutations of 

 theories advanced." 



Among the other interesting topics discussed by Eedi are Cherry Fruit Flies,. 

 Sheep Bot Flies, and Biting Lice of Birds. Our President, I surmise, will be 

 interested in his description and drawing of the Cherry Fruit Fly. His drawings, 

 of the Mallophaga are numerous and suggestive of much close observation. He 

 tells us that he used a microscope furnished with three lenses and made in Eome, 

 and that the drawings were made at his request, by F. Pizzichi. 



To the student of the history of biology, the book is a milestone marking 

 the beginning of a great epoch. It records the first, and therefore the most 

 important, statement supported by experimental evidence of that gTeat general- 

 ization named by Huxley the Theory of Biogenesis. 



It will be noted that Germany lagged behind the other countries of Europe 

 in the study of insects, producing only two writers of any merit. Eoesel von 

 Eosenhof (1705-1759), a miniature painter, published " Insecten-Belustigungen " 

 which contains many observations on the habits and metamorphoses of insects. 

 His colored figures and sketches are interesting even at the present time. Frisch, 

 a school teacher, published a number of observations. 



Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), acting on the suggestion of Eeaumur, demon- 

 strated the sexual reproduction of aphids, but it was Lyonnet who discovered that 

 male aphids appeared towards the end of summer and fertilized the eggs that 

 wintered over. 



Francois Huber (1750-1831), the blind Swiss naturalist, has given us much 

 interesting information regarding the habits and economy of the honey-bee. It is 

 said that " out of simple curiosity having undertaken to verify certain experiments 

 of Eeaumur's he was so completely fascinated by the subject that it became the 

 object of the rest of his life" (Legros). He made discoveries respecting the im- 

 pregnation of the queen, the conversion of a worker-larva into a queen by the- 



