December G, 1907J 



SCIENCE 



781 



ligenee and great scientific talents is un- 

 doubtedly one of the most valuable public 

 servants in Mexico, and one who deserves 

 much greater support at the hands of his 

 government. 



GREAT BRITAIN 



In regard to conditions in Great Britain 

 there have been changes since 1894. Mr. 

 Charles Whitehead, still living at Barming- 

 hoiise, Blackstone, has resigned his position 

 as technical adviser to the Board of Agri- 

 culture, and Miss Eleanor Ormerod, for 

 many years honorary consulting entomolo- 

 gist to the Eoyal Agricultural Society, has 

 died. Miss Ormerod 's services to British 

 agriculture were very great and her death 

 was a distinct loss to economic entomology. 

 Official recognition of this science in Great 

 Britain is slight. The Board of Agricul- 

 ture, with offices at No. 4 AYhitehall Place, 

 London, does not deal with this subject in 

 a separate branch, but it is included among 

 the other duties of the Intelligence Divi- 

 sion. The staff of this division consists, 

 besides the assistant secretary, of one head, 

 three assistant heads, five clerks and three 

 boys. There is also a zoological adviser 

 who is paid by the division, but the whole 

 of whose time is not occupied by services 

 to the board. There is no laboratory at- 

 tached to the board. At present the board 

 has no statutory powers to deal with insect 

 infestations, except those conferred by the 

 destructive insects act of 1877, which deals 

 only with the Colorado beetle, but a bill to 

 extend the powers of the board to all de- 

 structive insects is now before parliament 

 and is expected to become a law very 

 shortly. 



The sum provided by the annual parlia- 

 mentary vote for advice in economic ento- 

 mology is two hundred pounds. The zool- 

 ogical adviser is Mr. Cecil Warburton, 

 whose headquarters are at Cambridge, Eng- 

 land, where he has the accommodation of 



a zoological laboratory and a collection of 

 economic specimens. 



There is some good economic work done 

 at the University of Birmingham by Walter 

 B. Oollinge, and at the Southeastern Agri- 

 cultural College at Wye, Kent, by Mr. P. 

 V. Theobald. Mr. Collinge's work pro- 

 vides a consulting and experimental re- 

 search department in connection with eco- 

 nomic zoology, and his work includes an- 

 swering inquiries from farmers, identifying 

 farm pests, the carrying out of experi- 

 ments with insecticides and fungicides, in- 

 vestigations in life histories of insects, lec- 

 tures before agricultural and horticultural 

 organizations, inspecting orchard and farm 

 crops and the publication of the results. 

 The department has been well planned, and 

 its staff will include, when complete, a di- 

 rector and economic zoologist, economic 

 mycologist and clerical or other assistants. 



In the Southeastern Agricultural College 

 at Wye economic entomology was taken up 

 in 1894. Mr. Theobald was appointed in 

 charge, and he has since carried the work 

 along with the help of senior students only. 

 Mr. Theobald has a good laboratory and 

 equipment and has a large advisory corre- 

 spondence from all parts of the kingdom 

 and empire. He publishes an annual re- 

 port and lectures before farmers ' clubs and 

 at definite agricultural centers. The col- 

 lege at Wye trains many students in agri- 

 culture from all parts of the British em- 

 pire. The result is that Mr. Theobald lec- 

 tures upon tropical insects as well as upon 

 the insects of Great Britain. Some of 

 these graduate students have been sent out 

 to the colonies to take charge of entomolog- 

 ical work, and inasmuch as this work will 

 not receive especial consideration in this 

 address, it might be well to mention that 

 Mr. Harold H. King has been made the 

 entomologist to the Sudan government; 

 Mr. Frank Wilcox has been appointed en- 

 tomologist to the Khedival Agricultural 



