1921] The Age of Insects 53 



With all of these things in mind, I cannot help but feel that in spite 

 of the past brilliant record of entomology there are better things just 

 ahead of us. That undiscovered laws of life are awaiting the searching 

 eye of the worker in entomology. That as yet unheard of methods of 

 control are about to be discovered, making it possible for us to reduce 

 the tax we pay to insects to a negligible minimum, thus making pos- 

 sible an expansion in food production as yet undreamed. Feeling this 

 way, I cannot help wondering if the world will be ready for these dis- 

 coveries when they are made or will they lie buried as Mendel 's work 

 remained forgotten for nearly half a century? Will we accept them at 

 their true value or will we cast them aside as worthless? The Hindoos 

 have a legend that illustrates our present tendencies very well indeed. 

 A young man had an iron bracelet placed on his wrist one morning and 

 was told that on a certain beach there was a stone that would turn the 

 bracelet into gold. So he hastened out in the morning light and com- 

 menced to pick up the pebbles one by one and touched them rapidly 

 to the bracelet and observed the results with a critical eye. Thus he 

 labored all through the long morning of his youth but as the sun 

 climbed higher and higher, as the day got hotter and hotter, his speed 

 slackened and he commenced to ask himself if it was really worth 

 while. Wasn't the whole thing a hoax any way? Certainly no one 

 but a fool would beheve that you could turn an iron bracelet into gold. 

 Thus he labored through the noon-time half persuaded to stop but as 

 the day advanced and his shadow got longer to the east and as he 

 realized that the day was fast slipping away, he commenced to work 

 with renewed energy that gradually changed to frenzy as the shadows 

 of evening began to creep up from the valleys. And then as he looked 

 down in the half light he noticed that the bracelet had indeed turned 

 to gold. But he also realized that in his haste and in his carelessness 

 he did not know which was the magical stone. 



Raleigh, N. C. 



