1078 rnocEEDiNGs of the third entomological meeting 



between the egg, the caterpillar, the pupa and the butterfly. This 

 aroused her interest in insects and she collects them from all sorts of 

 plants. Soon after her experience with the above butterfly one day 

 she found two pupae of the oleander hawk-moth (Deilephih nerii) under 

 cover of old leaves lying on the road side. She brought them to the 

 writer and accurately described them as the pupse of some large cater- 

 pillars although she had not seen such pupae before. As against this 

 method of teaching, the writer remembers while reading in his under- 

 graduate days that the word " caterpillar " in a text book was explained 

 as referring to an unknown creature living on the surface of the earth 

 and he had not had the opportunity of recognising it in the ubiquitous 

 " sMm poka " until he joined the Agricultural Department. 



In India insects are present everywhere and they form the best 

 subjects for Natiu-e Study for small children. But the instruction 

 should be on proper lines. In Bengal villages and almost everywhere 

 in the coimtry most of the cultivators' boys attend the village palhshalas 

 (primary schools) for shorter or longer periods according to the means 

 .of the family. All families make an attempt to teach the boys at least 

 how to read and make small calculations. While attending the path- 

 sJialas the bo)'s can be shown the common insects by the Gnni (teacher). 

 For this purpose the Guru himself has to be taught when he attends 

 the Gum training-schools. Elementary text 'books written in the 

 plainest language in the vernaculars will be of help in this direction. 



When the cultivators will imderstand insect life they will know the 

 complexity of the problem and the difficulties of the entomologist and 

 will not expect wonders from him. The writer has heard the Ento- 

 mological Assistants in the Provinces being styled by the people as 

 " doctors." The people expect that plant-diseases due to insects are 

 capable of being cured by these entomological " doctors " with the 

 application of medicines, if not by incantations and mantras, as they 

 see human diseases cured by medical men and more recently cattle 

 diseases by veterinary surgeons. In this connection it may be pointed 

 out that most of the provinces have an Entomological Assistant, whose 

 time is wholly taken up and he himself spent up, in moving from place 

 to place, under orders to check insect outbreaks wherever they occur 

 throughout the Province. 



The position of the Entomologist in India is at present this. In 

 the case of most of the pests he cannot suggest really efficacious measures 

 on account of not having facilities for proper study. In the case of 

 some insects, for instance. Aphides, Scales, etc., the efficacious measures 

 either involve an outlay not within the means of the cultivator or lack 

 facilities for adoption. The results of preventive measures are not 



