CHAPTER XXI 



LETTERS TO DRS. RITZEMA BOS, SCHOYEN, REUTER AND 

 NALEPA, MR. LOUNSBURY AND MR. FULLER 



Eel-worms Ladybirds Wheat midges Resignation from the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society Wasps Study of Norwegian and Swedish Gall mites 

 Boot beetles Experience of publishing. 



REPRESENTATIVE letters to five foreign and colonial scientific 

 entomologists have been gathered into this chapter, among 

 other reasons to show the diversity of Miss Ormerod's 

 work, carried on in close touch and in the most agreeable 

 relations, with the highest wide-world authorities on various 

 specialised branches of her subject. 



To Professor J. Ritzema Bos, Amsterdam. 



TORRINGTON HOUSE, ST. ALBANS, ENGLAND, 



July 27, 1893. 



DEAR DR. RITZEMA Bos, I have not written to you for 

 a long time, partly because I had nothing of sufficient 

 importance to allow me to submit it to you, but also because 

 both my sister and myself had rather severe illnesses. 



Enclosed I beg to send you some pieces of potato, 

 which I think it is just possible may be infested by (or at 

 least have now) some slight presence of Tylenchus devasta- 

 trix (eel-worm, fig. 47). I received several tubers this 

 morning from near Helensburgh, in Dumbartonshire, Scot- 

 land. Mr. Robert Howie, the sender, writes me that a large 

 field recently dug up by him was very much damaged by 

 being badly " scabbed " in the same way as the samples sent. 

 But, when I came to examine the so-called "scabbed" parts 

 after washing, the surface for the most part looked to me 

 more as if it had been gnawed by some larvae, than if it were 

 a diseased state of coat. The skin of the potato is often 



left overhanging. I was going to suggest to Mr. Howie that 



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