[FLETCHER | PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 5 
and Mr. John Ray. to support her character. The latter went to Exeter 
and at the trial satisfied the judge and jury of the lady’s laudable inquiry 
into the wonderful works of creation, and established her will.” 
In the 18th century the great Linnæus, 1707-1778, shines out as 
a bright luminary and may be drawn attention to here as the first 
economic entomologist, for his advancement and opportunities to do his 
magnificent zoological and botanical work were, it is said, largely due to 
his wisdom in recommending that the spars to be used as masts for the 
navy, which were lying in the royal dockyard at Stockholm, should be 
sunk in water to protect them from wood-boring insects. Réaumur, born 
in France in 1683, the inventor of the thermometer which bears his name, 
published between 1734 and 1742 his remarkable work ‘“ Mémoires pour 
servir à l'histoire naturelle des insectes,” in which are detailed many 
original and accurate observations. He died in 1757. 
Fabricius, 1745-1808, in Denmark, and Latreille, 1762-1833, in France, 
also did monumental work. In England, Curtis, the author of ‘Farm 
Insects,” and Prof. Westwood, a most learned and voluminous writer, 
but best known by his * Modern Classification of Insects,” were upholding 
the honour of their country. 
In the article above referred to, Mr. Capper says: “In the beginning 
of the 19th century, Curtis's translation of ‘Fundamenta Entomologie ’ 
published in 1772, Yeates’s ‘ Institutions of Entomology,’ which appeared 
the year after, and Barbut’s ‘Genera Insectorum, 1781, were the only 
elementary works on entomology.” Convinced that this fact was the 
chief obstacle to the spread of entomology in Britain, Messrs. Kirby and 
Spence resolved to do what they could to remedy the deficiency, and the 
publication in 1815 of the Introduction to the Study of Entomology did 
more to attract popular attention to entomology than any book before 
or since published. The chapters devoted to insects beneticial and injur- 
ious to mankind, with the best means then known for the encouragement 
of the one and the destruction of the other, were the first steps in the 
direction of economic entomology, the study of which has to-day become 
so important. 
The Royal Agricultural Society of England was founded in 1840, 
and John Curtis, already well known as a writer on injurious insects, was 
invited to prepare each year a report on the injurious insects of crops. 
These reports ran from 1841 to 1857. They were afterwards consolidated 
and, with other matter added, formed his standard work on Farm Insects 
which appeared in 1860. By far the most important work which has 
been done in economic entomology in England, has been that of Miss 
Eleanor A. Ormerod, a public-spirited woman who much aided by her 
sister, Miss Georgina Ormerod, has given up the whole of her time to the 
collection of data and publishing at her own expense a series of illustrated 
reports, now seventeen in number, which are of inestimable value to the 
