CHAP. XL] SKETCH BY THE EDITOR 79 



quently insect-attacking) times of the year till autumn, and 

 then sort them and prepare them for the Annual Report of 

 that year. If some favourite subject be under discussion 

 the letters may be very numerous. I once had a run of 60, 

 80, to 100 a day for a short time, including on one day a 

 total of 149 but of course on such an occasion I was 

 obliged to get help to keep reply at all in hand. The 

 steady letter work of the year I estimate at about 1,500." 



Referring on December 27, 1889, to a proposal which 

 had been made to procure an assistant to relieve her of the 

 enormous pressure of work, she says : 



" I need not point out that, however agreeable the post 

 might be to my so-called ' assistant/ to me the addition 

 would be a trouble loss of time and other inconveniences 

 beyond telling. It would be more trouble to write to him 

 than to attend myself, and as a referee he would be almost 

 useless. My reference work is to the leading men of the 

 world those who are known, literally, as the authorities 

 above all others on the special points ; thus I am in no way 

 derogating from the respect I bear to Professor Harker's z 

 knowledge, but who that knew anything would have cared 

 for his opinion on Icerya piirchasi (scale insect of orange 

 trees) ? Dr. Signoret's opinion carried all before it. Again, 

 no one's opinion stands like that of Mr. G. B. Buckton on 

 Aphides, and he communicates with me whenever I ask. 



"On that most important agricultural matter, Tylenchus 

 devastatrix, there is no one in England fit to form an 

 opinion worth comparison with Drs. de Man and J. 

 Ritzema Bos, by whom I am favoured, through being 

 allowed any amount of communication. These, and men 

 like these, pre-eminent each in his own line, are the 

 referees that I personally am honoured by being allowed 

 to ask aid from ; and in my own humble way sometimes 

 I can reciprocate, but ' an assistant ' would do me no good 

 in any of these matters. And with regard to agricultural 

 and applied bearings I do not want a dictum, but year by 

 year by my own correspondence with agriculturists to work 

 out on the fields the parts of the cases as they occur, and to 

 give the points to the public in my reports. I am respon- 

 sible for the entomological work of the R.A.S.E., and unless 

 it goes through my hands I do not know what may be going 

 on, and no one would know to whom to write, or, in fact, 



1 The late Allen Barker, Professor of Biology at the Royal Agri- 

 cultural College, Cirencester, 



