ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 199 
to be very nearly getting some initiative step taken, and that 
since his death nothing is being done. If what he attempted was 
on the wrong lines, it would be well if some one duly qualified to 
do so would point out where it was wrong. If it was on the right 
lines, is there not any one to be found, or is there not a Society 
to be found, to continue the work he commenced ? 
If the statement is anything lke an approximately correct one 
that our annual losses by insect damage are equal to the cost of 
an Abyssinian war, the matter is far too serious to be ignored. 
If this is quite wrong it ought to be corrected. No doubt, in 
thinking of estimates of our losses, the mind is unconsciously 
influenced by the statistics of American losses. We may feel 
assured that these statistics show losses far in excess of what we 
suffer in England; but in the absence of any statistics of our 
own we cannot help wondering how our own would come out in 
figures, and being influenced by American figures. It is perhaps 
hardly fair to allude to American losses from the ‘“ Rocky 
Mountain locust,” as we have nothing of the kind in this country ; 
but when we learn from the first Report of the United States 
Entomological Commission that the losses from the locust ravages 
during the years 1874—1877 amounted to 200,000,000 dollars 
(fifty million pounds nearly), we cannot help speculating as to 
what kind of proportion our losses bear to this. No wonder that 
Americans have had recourse to legislation for the destruction of 
locusts! 
But though we have no statistics as to the losses we sustain, 
it seems to have been often recognised that they are of sufficient 
magnitude to be worth the attention of the Government, for 
the purpose that they in some way should direct action. In 
considering what should be submitted to our Government for 
them to undertake, it is instructive to look at what other nations 
have done. 
Let us first take France. An official abstract of French 
legislation on the subject is fortunately ready to hand. The 
‘Journal Officiel’ for June 28th, 1876, in giving the proposition 
de lov relative to the projet de loi drawn up and presented by 
“MM. de la Sicotiére, Grivart, and the Comte de Bouillé, had 
fourteen columns occupied with the history of legislation. It 
does not go back farther than the earliest civil war of 1732, but 
those who have read Boisduval’s ‘L’Entomologie Horticole’ 
will remember his reference to ecclesiastical fulminations against 
