WOMEN IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 249 



one cannot but realize the immense importance of her life- 

 work. 



The fact that her activities were confined chiefly to 

 old and well-known pests insects from which the farmer 

 and the gardener and the forester had suffered for cen- 

 turies, and which they had come to regard as necessary and 

 inevitable evils does not detract from the merit and the 

 value of her labors. That she should have taken up a work 

 which affected so many people and have been so successful 

 in abating, or in entirely removing evils which had so long 

 afflicted agriculturists and stock-growers, shows that she 

 was a woman of rare courage and determination as well as 

 one of invincible persistence and of intellectual resources 

 of a very high order. 



During more than a quarter of a century Miss Ormerod 

 devoted practically the whole of her time to the study of 

 economic entomology and to spreading a knowledge of it 

 among her countrymen. From 1877 to 1898 she published 

 annual reports on injurious insects and sent them broad- 

 cast throughout Great Britain and her colonies. In addi- 

 tion to this she wrote a number of manuals and text-books 

 on insects injurious to food crops, forest trees, orchards 

 and bush fruits. 



Nor was this all. She also prepared for gratuitous dis- 

 tribution a large number of four-page leaflets on the most 

 common farm pests. Of the leaflet, for instance, on the 

 warble-fly, its life-history, methods of prevention and rem- 

 edy, no less than a hundred and seventy thousand copies 

 were printed. And so great was the demand for her leaflet 

 on the gooseberry red spider that a single mail brought her 

 an order for three thousand copies. 



Miss Ormerod, it is proper to state here, received no re- 

 muneration whatever for her great services to the public. 

 On the contrary, she gave not only all her time gratui- 

 tously, but bore a great part of the expense of printing and 



