12 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 
It is also in regard to the insects themselves and their identification. 
Here again, exactitude is essential and must form the basis not only 
of progress but of all control measures. When we come to deal with 
the subject of Termites as pests of Wheat, I shall have more to say on 
this point. In the meanwhile I shall preach you a small sermon with 
Eucosma (Eucelis) critica as a text. During the past year I have over- 
hauled and put into order our collection of Micro-lepidoptera and in 
going over it had occasion to examine the series of specimens standing 
under the name Eucelvs critica. It was composed of three old specimens 
in bad condition. The first proved to be an Anarsia, which, as you 
probably know, does not even belong to the Family Eucosmide but 
to the Gelechiade ; the second was a mouldy mass which at first sight 
I took to be a cocoon but which, by the remains of a leg sticking out of 
the mould, had apparently once been a moth, and was now quite in- 
determinable ; the third was an ordinary example of Eucosma melanaula. 
All these specimens had been placed in the collection under the name 
Eucosma (Eucelis) critica, simply because every greyish moth found 
spinning up Cajanus shoots was lumped together as EF. critica. That 
may be a method of convenience, but it does not make for accuracy 
and 1t makes it impossible to be sure, in the absence of recognizable 
specimens, whether any of our older records of the occurrence of Eucosma 
critica really refer to that species or not. I may perhaps add a moral 
to this story by saying that even the elect are sometimes deceived, and 
that, owing to its variable appearance, this very species (Eucosma critica) 
has been described under three names by the same author, who is one 
of the best of our systematists. 
Such things illustrate the fact that we progress towards a better 
knowledge, provided that we are not satisfied with sticking in a groove. 
Our present knowledge of insects is infinitesimal. There is not a single 
Indian insect of which we can say that we know all about it. There 
are boundless opportunities in India—and it is open to each one of you 
to take them—for observation and study of the lifehistories, occurrence, 
food, habits, enemies, and all aspects of the economy of even the com- 
monest insects. Kvery one has its own peculiarities and it is very 
unsafe to generalize from particular instances. I can give you an 
example of that from some observations which I happened to make 
last year. Most of you have probably seen some of Fabre’s books and 
read, amongst others, his account of the Hunting Wasps. You will 
remember that Fabre, as the results of numerous experiments, came 
to the conclusion that the instincts of these wasps were lmmutably 
fixed and that they necessarily carried out every detail of nest building 
and storage of food for their young as a sort of fixed routine, being 
