I20 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [May, 



physician had actually shown this to be the case by squeezing a live screw- 

 worm from the abdomen of the wasp. One of the listeners was so sure 

 that the parent of the screw-worm was a wasp that h was willing to back 

 up his statement with a good financial consideration. But upon my offer 

 to put up a like amount, he was afraid to have the subject decided by 

 trial owing to the difficulty it would be to get the right species of wasp. 

 A merchant recently told me of a conversation he had had with a farmer 

 about a recent bulletin of the Station treating of the black weevil {Calan- 

 dra oryzce), which was about as follows : 



Farmer: " I never tried this remedy, but I know one thing he is off on." 



Merchant: " What is that?" 



Farmer: "Why, he says them 'ere corn weevils is produced by eggs 

 which are laid by the old weevils. That's not so, and I know it. Them 

 'ere weevils come from the vital force in the grain and grow after the corn 

 has been put in bins, in the same way as seeds sprout in the Spring." 



Merchant: "What makes you think that?" 



Farmer: "Why, I know it's the vital force in the grain that grows the 

 weevils, because you never see the weevils in rotten kernels." 



It would be hard work to pound sense into a stone, and the merchant, 

 realizing this, proceeded to tell the farmer that we lived on a small or- 

 ganism known as a bacterium, but when we were sick the bacterium lived 

 on us. Surely " where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise." 



Howard Evarts Weed, Agricultural College, Miss. 



Newspaper Entomology. — I do not Hke to see unreliable entomo- 

 logical statements designated in the News as "newspaper entomology." 

 If I were asked to state what I thought to be the greatest incentive to the 

 popularity of entomological study during the present century I would un- 

 hesitatingly say the newspapers. By this I mean papers usually known 

 and spoken of as newspapers, and more especially the agricultural press. 

 The entomological question is here discussed mostly from an economic 

 standpoint, yet interest in the science is pretty sure to be awakened, and 

 study and research will not stop at the point of injurious and beneficial 

 species. Purely scientific works and periodicals treating the subject are 

 accessible but to the few, and are not to be found in the homes of the 

 masses, while the homes without newspapers are few and far between. 

 As to the reliability of scientific articles diffused through this medium, 

 why are they not to be depended upon as much as are other matters from 

 the same source? If the paper is reliable, its statements can nearly always 

 be depended upon. Most of our eminent entomologists have at some 

 period of their career addressed the public through the medium of the 

 newspapers, and I venture to say have had larger and more appreciative 

 "audiences" than when the fruits of their researches were disseminated 

 by means of the strictly .scientific periodicals or books. To the science 

 of entomology much of my spare time has been given, and, in an humble 

 way, I do not hesitate to declare that, aside from personal research, by 

 far the greatest inc entive to additional study has been " newspajjer ento- 



