414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
on and now under way in the Bureau of Entomology, and the bureau 
has been able to devote as much money to it as its promised success 
from time to time seemed to warrant. It is probable that the men 
engaged in its prosecution have been as well fitted as any to be found. 
Some of them have grown up with the work as it has grown. It will 
not be necessary to attempt to estimate the sum the bureau has already 
spent in this direction in toto, but our experience over many years 
led us to spend $10,000 on alfalfa weevil parasites in 1923, and last 
year $15,000 on corn-borer parasites, $2,700 on Mexican bean beetle 
parasites, $28,000 on Japanese beetle parasites, and $50,000 on gypsy 
moth and brown-tail moth parasites. These sums include the salaries 
and expenses of traveling experts and foreign assistants and labo- 
ratory expenses abroad as well as similar expenses at the receiving 
end in the United States. In the case of the corn-borer parasite 
work, something over $3,000 of the $15,000 was spent last year in 
the home end of the work. 
Down to the present time nothing spectacular has resulted from the 
prolonged efforts of the bureau. Very many beneficial insects have 
been imported and have become acclimatized, and the present excellent 
condition of the New England woodlands as a whole must be at- 
tributed in large measure to the work of the bureau importations. 
But it must be remembered that these importations have been 
coming in since 1905 (except for the five years of war time), and 
that we are still continuing. This fact in itself shows that the 
problem is a big one with very many ramifications, and it indicates 
further that immediate results are not to be expected, except under 
certain conditions, in a country like ours. Congressional committees 
and the Budget Bureau say to us, about our various parasite proj- 
ects, “ You say ‘the work is promising,’ but how about definite 
results?” It is difficult to make them understand our unwillingness 
to make definite promises; but the subject undoubtedly greatly 
interests these hard-headed, practical men. 
The number of trained entomologists is increasing so rapidly 
almost all over the world that it is becoming an inexpensive matter 
to secure the introduction of promising parasites, on a compara- 
tively small scale, by correspondence—almost at the cost of postage. 
It is a sample of the mutually helpful feeling that exists to an 
extraordinary degree among entomologists—an early instance of 
the true international spirit that is coming. Practically all of the 
later shipments of Novius have been from California rather than 
from Australia, and the great work that this insect has done in 
Egypt, Portugal, and many other countries was made easy by the 
courtesy of California. 
