6 ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS. 



though utterly incapable in practical matters, was a greater scientist 

 than one who sought to render his studies of service to his kind. 



It was a foolish notion, to be sure, this making of an arbitrary dis- 

 tinction between the science when utilized and when not, and, except- 

 ing in the case of certain belated laboratory and museum workers, no 

 such idea is seriously entertained to-day. Indeed, it seems now that 

 the tendency is to exalt applied entomf)logy to the detriment of the 

 pursuit of its science. Certainly the economic entomologist has had 

 opportunities in the shape of financial support and influential back- 

 ing that have never been enlisted in the service of the purely scientific 

 side of the subject. Economic entomologists have all good reason to 

 feel proud of this, since it is largely a result of the practical view- 

 point and enterprise of the votaries of applied entomology. 



It has been the practical sense dcA^eloped by dealing with affairs 

 that has enabled them to enlist the attention of the public and educate 

 it to the importance of entomology as applied to agriculture and other 

 human concerns. The pure science Avorker would never have done 

 this, and it thus has happened that the entomologist, who was at one 

 time looked upon by his fellow-worker with something in the nature 

 of disdain, has taken first place in the estinuition of the general pub- 

 lic and commands attention Avhen the recluse laboratory worker gets 

 little consideration. And this is as it should be. The economic ento- 

 mologist can claim all entomology as his. Not a fact is there of 

 insect structure or life history or habit that may not at some time 

 prove to be of first importance from the practical point of view. 

 The history of this science is full of illustrations showing hoAv in- 

 sects and facts concerning them, regarded at first — like the economic 

 entomologist — as of no great consequence, have proven, when their 

 relations with other facts were known, to have a far greater impor- 

 tance than have those with which attention was mainly occui)ied. 

 The family Coccidse, at one time almost wholly ignored in this coun- 

 try by entomologists of all sorts, has, from the accidental introduction 

 of one of its species into California from abroad, and more recently 

 into the fruit-grownng States of the East, become of late one of the 

 most conspicuous groups of all insects and one of those most often 

 mentioned and discussed among people not entomologists. The 

 species just mentioned may be said to have wrought a greater change 

 in the attitude of the general public toward entomology and ento- 

 mologists than all of the other known species of scale insects together. 

 The family Culicida^, also vej-y generally ignored by entomologists 

 until recently, and serving largely as a subject for jokes by other 

 people, has, from the discovery of the relations of certain of its 

 species with the diseases malaria and yellow fever, become one of the 

 most important and interesting of all groups of insects. The dis- 

 covery of these relations has made necessary careful systematic work 



