1078 I'HOCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



between the egg, tlie caterpillar, the pupa and the butterfly. This 

 aroused her interest in insects and she collects them from all sorts of 

 plants. Soon after her experience with the above butterfly one day 

 she found two pupae of the oleander hawk-moth (Deilcphila verii) under 

 cover of old leaves lying on the road side. She brought them to the 

 writer and accurately described them as the pupse of some large cater- 

 pillars although she had not seen such pupa? before. As against this 

 method of teaching, the wTiter remembers while reading in his under- 

 graduate days that the word " caterpillar " in a text book was explained 

 as referring to an unl<nown creature living on the surface of the earth 

 and he had not had the opportunity of recognising it in the ubiquitous 

 " shiia fokn " until he joined the Agricultural Department. 



In India insects are present everywhere and they form the best 

 subjects for Nature Study for small children. But the instruction 

 should be on proper lines. In Bengal villages and almost everywhere 

 in the country most of the cultivators" boys attend the village falhftliaJas 

 (primary schools) for shorter or longer periods according to the means 

 of the family. All families make an attempt to teach the boys at least 

 how to read and make small calculations. WhDe attending the path- 

 shalas the boys can be shown the common insects by the Gum- (teacher).' 

 For this purpose the Giirit himself has to be taught when he attends 

 the Guru training-schools. Elementary text books written in the 

 plainest language in the vernaculars will be of help in this direction. 



When the cultivators WA\ imderstand insect life they will know the 

 complexity of the problem and the difficulties of the entomologist and 

 will not expect wonders from him. The -ivinter has heard the Ento- 

 mological Assistants in the Provinces being styled by the people as 

 " doctors." The people expect that plant-diseases due to insects are 

 capable of being cured by these entomological " doctors "' with the 

 application of medicines, if not by incantations and inanlras, as they 

 see human diseases cured by medical men and more recently cattle 

 diseases by veterinary surgeons. In this coimection it may be pointed 

 out that most of the provinces have an Entomological Assistant, whose 

 time is wholly taken up and he himself spent up. in moving from place 

 to place, under orders to check insect outbreaks wherever they occur 

 throughout the Province. 



The position of the Entomologist in India is at present this. In 

 the case of most of the pests he cannot suggest really efiicacious measures 

 on account of not having facilities for pro]icr study. In the case of 

 some insects, for instance. Aphides. Scales, etc., the efficacious measures 

 either involve an outlay not within the means of the cultivator or lack 

 facilities for adoption. The results of preventive measures are not 



