1919.| The Sixth Indian Science Congress. CXXXIX 
I will take as exemplifying this importance what seems to 
me to be the chief problem of applied zoology, and in particu- 
lar those departments of it that deal with measures against 
harmful animals, and more especially against insects. 
It is often assumed that the aim of the eerige yi cae the 
Mycologist, the Sanitarian, the Medical Office h 
mologist, who may have to deal with harmful organisins such as 
fungi or insects, is the destruction or “eradication’’ of the 
plant or insect that is doing damage. 
But this singteueniats of the noxious organism, though of 
preventing contact. in reality, the prevention of contact is our 
primary aim. No one minds a caterpillar. for example, so long 
as it does no damage to certain particular plants we are fond 
of; and if it would refrain when asked to do so from eating 
hem, m sure no tender-hearted person would think it 
necessary to kill it as well. If 1 may make a short reese 
I might remark that whatever may be said of our general 
administration of this country, our judicial eietial has in 
certain areas compelled an unusual degree of re respect. In 
certain parts of Bihar, when a crop is badly eiticked by cater- 
pillars, the local priest posts in the field a proclamation which 
is couched in the correct official terms and language of the 
) 
to their homes within a specified period, on pain of severe 
penalties, 
Probably the proclamation is as often as not effective, and 
= fact that at caterpillars—by the end of the specified 
riod—may ed themselves up, gone into hiding, and 
ated, need ae detract from our appreciation of the testi- 
rh to the effectiveness of our legal methods. The procla- 
mation clearly recognizes the fact that prevention of contact 
In the case of almost all insects “effective contact” 
means not merely bodily contact but feeding. An d feeding 
implies not merely ee mechanical contact of the pure _— 
and so forth, with the — of the victim, but 
ided 
in our every action by the light of pure reason, never absent- 
minded, and accustomed to eat what to a caterpillar or a 
mosquito would seem the most amazing and repulsive collec- 
tion of foodstuffs, it ~— seem a little pedantic to insist on the 
necessity of food-recognition. 
