64 AUTOBIOGRAPHY [CHAP. ix. 



or fruit-grower to know what the connection is between the 

 grubs and maggots which he finds underground or on his 

 trees and the moths or beetles which he may notice in his 

 fields or orchards. To give a single instance, how seldom 

 the grey, cylindrical, legless grubs of the Daddy Longlegs 

 are known to have anything to do with the large, gnat-like, 

 two-winged flies which are to be seen floating over our 

 grass-fields in legions where the larvae have been destroying 

 underground. And so the work went on, and I believe that 

 I may say that from the great amount of useful information 

 contributed, together with my own co-operation in entomo- 

 logical verification, adding requisite details, publishing the 

 year's communications, and distributing them to my contri- 

 butors it answered fairly the purpose for which it was set 

 on foot. And year by year we gained knowledge till we 

 possessed serviceable information on the main points, both 

 of habits and means of prevention of the greater number of 

 our really seriously injurious farm, orchard, and forest pests 

 of Britain. 



Those who wish to investigate in detail the various kinds 

 of infestation noticed during the first twenty-two years of 

 my observations will find them in "The General Index to 

 my Annual Reports on Injurious Insects, 1877-1898," com- 

 piled at my request by Mr. Robert Newstead. 1 In this index 

 the insects are arranged alphabetically under their popular and 

 also under their scientific names, with references to the various 

 Annual Reports in which notices of their observation are 

 recorded, or papers given on them, and also of the pages in 

 each paper containing information on their habits and 

 history and means of prevention. Lists are also given of 

 crops and plants, stock, &c., affected. The index thus 

 affords a fair summary of the advance of our knowledge 

 of crop infestation during the years referred to. 2 



In the year 1881 I published a digest of the information 



1 Curator of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. 



2 On November 26, 1899, Miss Orme'rod wrote to Mr. Newstead : 

 " I am delighted with our index the more I examine it the better I 



like it. Some acknowledgments have come in already, and they are 

 most pleasantly cordial. All are delighted to have such a good reference 

 work . . . One recipient suggests the index would be more serviceable 

 to him if he had a complete set of my reports ! He absolutely enclosed 

 a list of deficiencies, but I thought he had best buy, and only sent him 

 that for 1896." 



Other letters she wrote about the index " were on much the same 

 lines, and one refers to the cordial letter received from the Board of 

 Agriculture " (Eo.). 



