Vol. l,]¥o.7.] INSECT LIFE. [January, 18§9. 



SPECIAL NOTES. 



We have just sent our ludiaiia ageut, Mr. F. M. Webster, to Australia 

 to assist in the collection of the parasites of the Fluted Scale {Iceryajmr- 

 chasl), and to write up a report on the agricultural aspects of the Mel- 

 bourne Exposition. Mr. Webster sailed December 15, and will return 

 to this country in March. 



As will be noticed from the third page of the cover of this number, 

 Mr. W. B. Alwood has resigned his position in the Division and Mr. C- 

 L. Marlatt has been appointed. Mr. Alwood has accepted the i)osition 

 of Vice-Director of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station at 

 Blacksburg, Va. Mr. Marlatt comes to us from the Kansas State Agri- 

 cultural College at Manhattan, where he has held tfce position of Assist- 

 ant in Entomology. 



A number of workers in economic entomology will soon be coming 

 to the front. Under the Hatch experiment-station act, something over 

 twenty of the State experiment stations have been able to appoint an 

 entomologist among the officers. Some' of the appointees have been 

 well trained in economic entomology, while others are youug men 

 fresh from college with only a general knowledge of the subject. So 

 large a number of men situated in different parts of the country, de- 

 voting their time wholly or in ivart to work which should be original and 

 experimental, can not fail to produce important results. It has long 

 seemed to us that much could be gained through an association of those 

 actually working in this direction, and since this enlargement of the 

 number of workers the desirability of such an association seems to us 

 greater than ever before. Other specialists, as the chemists, the orni- 

 thologists, tbeicthyologists, have their national organizations and their 

 annual meetings to discuss methods of work and fields for investigation. 



It seems to us that there should be a national organization of those 

 entomologists engaged in the practical application of the science, meet- 



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