82 BIOGRAPHICAL [CHAP. XL 



great credit upon you. I am very glad that your letters 

 have been so appreciated that it has been necessary to 

 summon a lady private secretary to your aid. It will be 

 a satisfaction to you that you will now be able to accom- 

 plish much more than before. I am led to think whether 

 I should not ask our next Legislature to provide for an 

 assistant for me. 



Your kind letter of the loth inst. was also duly received. 

 How strange, and how very interesting to me, that you 

 should discover Cecidomyia leguminicola (Gnat midge), 

 red maggot, with you, as you have done, working at 

 the root only " infesting the root," and not, so far as 

 known, attacking the head. If it occurs on the blossoms, 

 you should have been able to find it there by the time that 

 this reaches you, for, as I have somewhere mentioned, the 

 nearly-mature larva shows a disposition to leave the clover 

 heads very soon after they are picked. You ask if I have 

 observed this form in other cecids of the clover. We have, 

 so far as known, but one other clover cecid, and that is 

 your introduced C. trifolii (Clover leaf midge). The thought 

 suggests itself to examine some of my dried leguminicola 

 larvae. I am glad to have found in my collection examples 

 preserved in alcohol of the larvae which I had forgotten. 

 As I put up quite a little quantity of them, I can spare you 

 these, which I am sure will be acceptable to you. 



Your investigation of the "warble" presence (p. no) effect 

 upon the beef-eater will, I am sure, be of much importance. 

 One of our Western agricultural papers has commenced an 

 investigation. Probably your studies and publications have 

 incited them to it. 



March 12, 1894. 



In going carefully over several pages of your seventeenth 

 report, which came to me last week, I asked myself, " Is not 

 this the best report that Miss Ormerod has written ? " You 

 are pleased to bestow praise on my reports, which from you 

 is agreeable to receive, but I think that I can judge of their 

 true value, and very glad indeed would I be if I could feel 

 that they were up to the standard of yours. These are far 

 from words of flattery, but are said because I believe that 

 you need encouragement. Your reports have high merit 

 and value, beyond similar writings of any of your English 

 contemporaries yes, far beyond. As ever, sincerely yours, 



J. A. LlNTNER. 



