WHAT IS ENTOMOLOGY?— STRONG 3gl 



food and egg-laying peculiarities of the Hessian fly and of other species 

 of insects has indicated the possibility of developing resistant strains 

 of plants entirely suitable for human or livestock consumption but 

 immune or partially immune to insect attack. 



In the chemistry of developing insecticides and fungicides it is es- 

 sential to treat of insects. Kjiowledge of the insect habits, the meth- 

 ods of fighting, and the character of injury is an essential part of the 

 chemist's approach to the problem of developing a killer. Fungicides 

 must be compatible with insecticides, and vice versa; hence plant 

 diseases must be taken into account. No more attentive listeners 

 \sdll be found at entomological meetings than the chemists of the 

 Division of Insecticide Investigations in the Bureau of Entomology 

 and Plant Quarantine. 



In studying and fighting insects it must be remembered that many 

 of the most injurious forms spend a large portion of their Ufetirne in 

 the ground as larvae or worms. The Japanese beetle, for example, a 

 serious pest on the Atlantic seaboard, spends 9 months of the year in 

 the soil as a larva. Many of the wireworms are in the soil 3 years in 

 the worm stage and, as is well known, the periodical cicada spends 17 

 years in the soil. Entomologists are thus dealing with species which 

 are not able to give expression to the reaction of the various insecti- 

 cides and other control measures used, and observations are difficult 

 and necessarily infrequent. So when entomologists are asked why 

 after many years of study on a certain insect they are not able to 

 immediately outline adequate control measures, there is a real answer. 

 And at that the progress made probably does not sufi^er in comparison 

 with the progress made by other branches of science in the study, for 

 example, of many human ailments, even that most ordinary thing, the 

 common cold. 



Conservation of natural resources involves treating of insects; and 

 to a far greater degree than is now practiced if it is to be real conser- 

 vation. You may find thousands of square miles of forested areas in 

 this country where the best of the timber has been killed by insects. 

 In large areas in the high forests of the West the losses occasioned by 

 insects exceed the combined value of timber cut for lumber and burned 

 by fire. Does this suggest treating of insects? Our range lands are 

 denuded over large areas by the feeding of grasshoppers and Mormon 

 crickets. Not only do we lose the range but an erosion problem is 

 created. Does not real conservation suggest something here? What 

 about the conservation of animals? Consider the fever tick, the 

 buffalo gnat, the screwworm, the insects that prey on wildlife. How 

 about the health of humans? What of yellow fever, malaria, spotted 

 fever, tularemia, all transmitted by insects; and consider for just a 

 moment merely the comfort of humans ; is it not affected by the house- 

 fly, the mosquito, the sandfly, or the eye gnat, as well as other 



