December 30, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



647 



human species the dominant type of the 

 vertebrate series. But, biologically speaking, 

 there is another class of animals which, with- 

 out developing the thne-hinding faculty, has 

 carried the evolution of instinct to an ex- 

 treme and has in its turn come to be the 

 dominant type of another great series, the 

 Articulates, or the Arthropods. As Bouvier 

 puts it, 



Man occupies the highest point in the vertebrate 

 scale, for he breaks the chain of instincts and as- 

 sures the complete expansion of his intelligence. 

 The insects hold the same dominating position in 

 the Articulates where they are the crowning point 

 of instinctive life. 



Unlike the Echinoderms and the Mollusks 

 which have retained their hard coverings or 

 shells and have therefore progressed more 

 slowly — for, as Bergson says, " The animal 

 which is shut up in a citadel or a coat of 

 mail is condemned to an existence of half 

 sleep " — vertebrates, culminating in man, 

 have acquired the bodily structure which, 

 vpith man guided by the equally acquired in- 

 telligence, has enabled him to accomplish the 

 marvels which we see in our daily existence. 

 And, too, the Articulates have in the course 

 of the ages been modified and perfected in 

 their structure and in their biology until 

 their many appendages have become perfect 

 tools adapted in the most complete way to 

 the needs of the species; until their power of 

 existing and of multiplying enormously 

 under the most extraordinary variety of con- 

 ditions, of subsisting successfully upon an 

 extraordinary variety of food, has become 

 so perfected and their instincts have become 

 so developed that the culminating type, the 

 insects, has become the most powerful rival 

 of the culminating vertebrate type, man. 



Now, this is not recognized to the full by 

 people in general — it is not realized by the 

 biologists themselves. We appreciate the fact 

 that agriculture suffers enormoiisly, since in- 

 sects need our farm products and compel us 

 to share with them. We are just beginning 

 to appreciate that directly and indirectly in- 

 sects cause a tremendous loss of human life 

 through fte diseases that they carry. But 



apart from these two generalizations we do 

 not realize that insects are working against 

 us in a host of ways, sometimes obviously, 

 more often in unseen ways, and that an 

 enormous fight is on our hands. 



It will be obvious, I think, that this state- 

 ment is not overdrawn. Quite recently a 

 better appreciation of the situation is begin- 

 ning to show itself. Early in the war (July, 

 1915) Sir Harry Johnston's strong article 

 entitled " The Next War : Man versus In- 

 sects " was published in The Nineteenth Cen- 

 tury; and at the close of the war precisely 

 the same title was used by Lieutenant 

 Colonel W. Glen Listen, of the Indian Medi- 

 cal Service, in his address as president of 

 the Medical Eesearch Section of the Indian 

 Science Congress held at Calcutta in Janu- 

 ary, 1919. On this side, articles by Felt of 

 Albany, Brues of Harvard, and by the pres- 

 ent speaker called especial attention to the 

 important part that entomology and ento- 

 mologists played during the world war, and 

 since that time several energetic newspaper 

 writers have been trying to place the case 

 before the public. 



It is difficult to understand the long-time 

 comparative indifference of the human spe- 

 cies to the insect danger. A little more than 

 a hundred years ago the popular opinion of 

 entomology and entomologists in England 

 was well expressed by that admirable charac- 

 ter, the Eev. William Kirby, in the following 

 words : 



One principal cause of the little attention paid to 

 entomology in this country has doubtless been the 

 ridicule so often thrown upon the science. The 

 botanist, sheltered now by the sanction of fashion, 

 as formerly by the prescriptive union of his study 

 with medicine, may dedicate his hours to mosses and 

 lichens without reproach ; but in the minds of most 

 men, the learned as well as the vulgar, the idea of 

 the trifling nature of his pursuit is so strongly as- 

 sociated with that of the diminutive size of it8 

 objects, that an entomologist is synonymous with 

 everything futile and childish. Now, when so majiy 

 other roads to fame and distinction are open; when 

 a man has merely to avow himself a botanist, a 

 mineralogist, or a chemist — a student of classical 

 literature or political economy — to ensure attention 



