222 LETTERS TO DR. FLETCHER [CHAP. xx. 



to surmise that all had not been quite comfortable. Who 

 will be his successor ? Will it be Mr. L. O. Howard, I 

 wonder ? I expect that Professor Riley (unless he is really 

 very ill) will work at his Entomology from morning till 

 night or more. 



The oak trees have been very severely injured by cater- 

 pillars in various places. Down near Lymington, Hants, 

 one of my correspondents tells me the leafage is stripped 

 so that the trees look as if it were the middle of the winter. 

 Aphides also are very great pests this year, and we had a 

 bad grass attack of them near Newcastle-on-Tyne. They 

 were reported to be spreading rapidly from one large field 

 (that is, large for us) of 15 to 20 acres, so I thought the best 

 advice I could give was to mow the field in the most 

 literal sense, cut off the source of evil. 



Is it not rather an interesting point to think of that 

 whether the weather be hot and dry, or cold and wet, there 

 are some kinds of insect attack which appear to do equally 

 well ? The- crops bear up better in special circumstances, 

 but their unpleasant enemies seem to me just as com- 

 fortable. 



I have got a very curious investigation on hand of the 

 mischief of some beetles on the grassland of our South 

 American Land Co. in the Argentine Territories. I will 

 enclose or send you a little note I put in one of our agri- 

 cultural papers. Is it not curious that the two Scarabseid 

 beetles sent over with the Dynastids should so rarely come 

 to hand here that there is only one specimen of each in our 

 British Museum ! I hope to work up the observations, or 

 rather, to get a good deal of trustworthy observation to work 

 upon, and to get some more specimens. 



July 16, 1894. 



I am now writing first of all to ask you kindly to accept a 

 copy of the translation by Professor Ainsworth Davis of Dr. 

 Ritzema Bos's "Agricultural Zoology." It seems to me a very 

 useful book, but I think it is a mistake of Messrs. Chapman & 

 Hall to have so arranged it that the price is 6s. This is almost 

 a prohibitory price to many who could find 2s. 6d. or 33. 

 Also, if I had seen proof of title I think I would have asked 

 for my name to appear in a much more secondary fashion. 

 I should mention this copy is one of a few sent me for 

 friends. I did not buy it or I would not have enlarged on 

 the price ! I have written, by request of Professor Davis, a 

 short Introduction, and I was very glad to do it to show that 

 I had no feeling of opposition, for much of it is on parallel 



