40 



Zoological Section of the British Association at Winnipeg, could 

 say : "A few years ago no knowledge could seem more useless to 

 the practical man, no research more futile, than that which sought to 

 distinguish one species of gnat or tick from another, yet to-day they 

 knew that that knowledge had rendered it possible to open up 

 Africa and to cut the Panama Canal." 



There only remains to say a few words on what may be termed 

 the personal side of the subject. Flies are easy to catch as a rule, 

 and are to be found pretty well anywhere. They can be set or not 

 according to one's taste. The chief drawback is due to the want of 

 reliable works by which to identify specimens, but this is being 

 gradually met, both by works such as Mr. Verrall's two volumes and 

 by monographs on various families appearing in the entomological 

 magazines. For Londoners, too, there is the advantage of easy 

 access to the collections in the British Museum at South Kensington. 



There is still a great scarcity of workers, and reliable local lists are 

 few and far between, besides being, as a rule, very incomplete, so 

 that there is ample scope for those who, like myself, merely make a 

 hobby of fly-catching, and, while willing to help, do not themselves 

 enter into the deeper waters of scientific study of the order. 



