THE STUDY OF LIFE-HISTORY. 



125 



of the phenomena noted, it would be the duty of the committee 

 to add also a concise epitome of any special local feature in the 

 type of weather experienced over the district from which the 

 observations had been gleaned. All meteorological conditions of 

 a general character could be obtained from the records of the 

 Royal Meteorological Society's one hundred cliraatological stations 

 established in various parts of the kingdom, and these would of 

 course be available to the specially appointed Central Committee, 

 to which at the end of each season every society would forward 

 its report for arrangement and comparison. 



The value of such records might not at first be very apparent, 

 although they would early serve to show us whether the appear- 

 ance of any insect pest was of a general or only local nature, 

 and, if the latter, the Central Committee would pay particular 

 attention to the reports received from the stricken districts with 

 the object of discovering any possible reason for such occurrence. 

 In the course of a decade or two a mass of carefully arranged 

 observations and details from all parts of the kingdom would be 

 in the possession of this committee, from which it is certain many 

 important facts would have already begun to manifest themselves, 

 and every year would naturally add to the value of the records 

 by furnishing us with increasing data upon which both to base 

 our theories and determine our facts. 



That the rough scheme here sketched may appear difficult of 

 attainment in the crude and skeleton form in which I have pre- 

 sented it, there is no one more sensible than myself. Neverthe- 

 less I do not regard the subject as chimerical, nor as one more 

 fitted to the columns of * Punch ' than inclusion in the transac- 

 tions of a scientific society. Our grandfathers would have been 

 sceptical of the possibility of obtaining from a central bureau in 

 London daily forecasts of the weather for all parts of the king- 

 dom, yet we are perfectly accustomed to the practice. But how 

 many of us a year or two ago would have dreamed of the value 

 shortly to be attached to the yearly reports of the irregular rain- 

 fall in India ; whilst fewer still would have imagined that a large 

 portion of humanity was soon to benefit by the accumulating 

 records of so apparently uncommercial a proceeding as the study 

 of the spectra of sun-spots. Yet observations of these two 

 seemingly fortuitous events covering a sequence of years exhibit 

 sufficient method and connection to warrant Sir Norman Lockyer's 

 stating that one of the great scientific triumphs of the early years 

 of the present century will be the ability not only to foretell 

 approaching droughts in Australia and famines in Hindustan, 

 but to add details as to area and extent. And who knows but 

 that, just as the British farmer now scans in his morning paper 

 the weather predictions for his district, so that farmer's grandson 

 may in future years pay even greater attention to the monthly or 

 other periodic forecasts of the Economic Entomologist's Depart- 



