8 



iiomic entomologist in the country is not present. You will see by tlie 

 printed program which has been submitted to you that there are i)a- 

 pers upon many important subjects, and arrangements have been made 

 by which our meetings shall not clash with those of either of the other 

 bodies before which entomological papers are to be read, so that there 

 is nothing to prevent members wishing to do so from being present at 

 the reading of all these papers during this week. By a mutual arrange- 

 ment with the president of the Entomological Club of the A. A. A. S. 

 authors have been requested to submit papers of economic interest to 

 this association whilst those of scientific or systematic nature will come 

 before the club or the section of biology. 



I trust, gentlemen, I may not be considered presumptuous if I make 

 use of the opportunity, which you forced upon me when you elected 

 me to this honorable position at the last annual hieeting, to lay before 

 you some ideas which have occurred to me by which we can make our 

 work more useful and also secure better facilities for making it i)opular 

 throughout the country. Why is it that the botanist, the chemist, and 

 the geologist do not elicit the amusement only, from the ignorant, wliich 

 is called forth by the entomologist in prosecuting his investigations? 

 While not for one moment wishing to belittle their work I maintain 

 stoutly that not one of these or all combined can compare with ento- 

 mology in its possibilities when tested by the rule of Gui hono f The 

 silent respect accorded these sciences is no doubt largely due to sup- 

 posed, not to call them fictitious, virtues. 



The botanist has from ancient times been inseparably associated with 

 medicine and the discovery of a panacea for all the ills to which mortal 

 man is heir. Even in the wilderness, with a handful of herbs he is ex- 

 empt from molestation by either Indian or white man run wild. The 

 chemist again deals with things unintelligible to the masses, illustrated 

 with loud noises and nasty smells, and there has come down with him 

 from the middle ages a sort of twin-brotherhood with the alchemist and 

 the practicers of other dark arts — the possibility of his discovering in 

 his laboratory an easy means of creating, without hard work, gold, that 

 which is by most men most coveted and for which many will commit 

 crime or be induced to acts mean and contemptible. Too true even to- 

 day are VirgiFs words: " Quid non mortalia 'pectora coges, Auri sacra 

 fames!'''' What will you not compel mortal breasts to do, cursed 

 lust for gold! The geologist, with his pick, or his humble but sordid, 

 vulture-like follower, the " prospector," means to the uneducated eye a 

 public benefactor, who may find that purest but most degrading metal, 

 the search for which is the mainspring and motor of so many lives. 

 Who that has traveled in the far West has not seen the magic effect 

 in removing difficulties of the words " I am working for the Geological 

 Survey?" And yet— I say it not as a wail — there is no such respect for 

 the "bug sharp" or "grasshopper tenderfoot," who has saved them 

 there, in that very country, the very means of subsistence, and he is I 



