1916] Entomology in the British Empire 5 



carriers of the different types of Trypanosomes. The men 

 engaged in this work are Mr. W. F. Fiske and Dr. G. D. H. 

 Carpenter, in Uganda, Dr. W. A. Lamborn in Nyasaland and 

 Dr. J. J. Simpson in the Gold Coast. 



The work of the Bureau is wholly different from that of the 

 United States Bureau of Entomology. Its primary function 

 is that of an intelligence bureau, a clearing house for entomo- 

 logical information, collecting such information for the use of 

 the British countries supporting it. It has already accomplished 

 a large amount of useful work and has been of particular 

 assistance to those isolated and scattered British territories 

 where the entomologists and medical officers suffer from lack 

 of museums, libraries and co-workers which they would wish 

 to consult. International as the scope of its survey necessarily 

 is, it has already demonstrated how valuable a similar Bureau 

 properly constituted on international lines might prove. 



England. The British Government in the past has not 

 maintained an official entomologist or entomological staff. The 

 Board of Agriculture and Fisheries has been content to retain 

 the services of an outside entomologist to prepare replies to any 

 entomological inquiries submitted to it by farmers and others, 

 and their leaflets have been chiefly the work of unofficial 

 advisers. In the absence of an offlcial entomological staff the 

 investigation of insects affecting agriculture has been left in 

 the hands of men such as Prof. F. V. Theobald of the South 

 Eastern Agricultural College who is now making a much 

 needed study of the British aphides and whose work on mos- 

 quitoes is well known, Mr. C. Warburton of Cambridge, Prof. 

 Newstead of Liverpool, Mr. W. E. ColHnge, and others. 



It is perhaps difficult on this continent to understand the 

 underlying reason for the scant development of "official" 

 entomology in England. But it must be pointed out that 

 agricultural conditions are entirely different in such old coun- 

 tries where there is a more intensive system of farming, a 

 consequent closer supervision of crops, cleaner cultivation and 

 long developed systems of rotation. More especially, the 

 comparative stability of the agricultural conditions has pro- 

 duced a more perfect balance in all those natural conditions 

 the disturbance of which in more lately developed countries 

 leads to an abnormal behaviour of the insects which are poten- 

 tially noxious. These facts should, therefore, be borne in mind 



