WOMEN IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



Miss Ormerod, unlike Mme. Royer, was preeminently a 

 specialist, and the branch of science in which she achieved 

 distinction was entomology, or rather that branch of it 

 known as economic entomology. From her childhood she 

 manifested an unusual interest in all forms of insects, but 

 particularly in those which are serviceable to mankind or 

 are destructive to farms and gardens, orchards and forests. 



Fortunately for the gratification of her peculiar bent of 

 mind, nearly half of Miss Ormerod 's life was spent in a 

 locality which was specially favorable to the study of in- 

 sects which are obnoxious to the gardener, the farmer and 

 the forester. This was at the confluence of the "Wye and 

 the Severn, where her father owned a large landed estate, 

 part of which was under cultivation and part wood and 

 park land. 



Here the young girl made her first collection of insects, 

 and here she began her studies on the cause and nature of 

 the parasitic attacks upon crops. Here she first realized 

 the frightful ravages that were occasioned by the manifold 

 insect pests that infest not only trees, shrubs, cereals and 

 vegetables, but also flocks and herds as well. And here, too, 

 she resolved to devote her life to devising preventive and 

 remedial treatment for the evils which were robbing the 

 husbandman of so great a part of the fruits of his toil. 



After taking this generous resolution, the life of our 

 young heroine was, like that of Liebig and Pasteur, de- 

 voted to the welfare of her f ellowmen. And like these noble 

 benefactors of their race, her thought was always how she 

 might prevent the losses and increase the products of the 

 tillers of the soil. Entomology with her was not mere 

 nomenclature a knowledge of strange and fantastic names, 

 which, with the ignorant, constitutes a distinction but one 

 of the most practical and useful of the sciences. 



Miss Ormerod might, had she so elected, have won fame 

 as a systematic entomologist and as a distinguished con- 

 tributor to the already long list of genera and species of 



