46 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



observations inform us at times that a violent storm in the Gulf of Mexico is making 

 itself felt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Such statements as theBe assist us in forming 

 some estimate of the far reaching influences that may be affecting the weather of our 

 particular locality. 



The forecasts of the weather for the succeeding twenty- four hours, which we have 

 become accustomed to regularly consult, and in good measure to rely upon, and which 

 have proved to be of such immense value to multitudes in their everyday movements 

 upon land or water, are not a matter of guesswork as some seem to suppose, but the 

 condensed result of a vast amount of information gathered together into one central 

 office from numerous distant stations, where it is examined and systematically arranged 

 on purely scientific principles, before the probabilities are issued for the benefit of tho^e 

 living in the different regions into which the country has been divided. 



The governments of various countries, realizing the advantage that would accrue to> 

 their people from a foreknowledge of what the weather would be for even one day, have 

 established, at very considerable expense, stations all over their countries with suitable 

 instruments for registering the atmospheric conditions and changes, with a competent 

 person in charge to note these and transmit them by telegraph to the central office at 

 stated times. The qualified meteorologist in charge of the central office or weather 

 bureau receives these dispatches from all the separate stations far and near, and has to 

 arrange, compare and condense the information thus obtained. Having been thus placed 

 as it were upon an elevation from which he can survey the whole atmospheric move- 

 ments that are going on all over the country at one glance, and being familiar with the 

 laws that govern these movements, he has to make his observations from what they are 

 at the present, as to what they are likely to be during the next twenty-four hours in, 

 the different regions into which the country has been divided. 



For instance, he receives from a station hundreds of miles away information that 

 a storm of a particular kind is raging there, the wind blowing in a particular direction,. 

 at the rate of so many miles an hour, he has to calculate by the rate it is travelling and 

 its direction, at what particular time it will be likely to reach particular points along 

 its course. But he may get at the same time information that hundreds of miles away 

 in the opposite direction another storm is prevailing, which may throw the previous 

 calculations completely out as he has now to take into consideration what influence the 

 one will have upon the other, and if they unite what is the direction it will pursue, and 

 whether with increased or diminished force. And so it is through the whole range of 

 every condition and commotion of the atmosphere that exists at any particular place all 

 over the country. Such a brief statement may help to show how thoroughly the weather 

 bureau is under intelligent and scientific control, and that we may confidently rely upon 

 its forecasts as proximately correct. And if the informing stations were increased in 

 numbers, and the regions for which the probabilities are issued were reduced in dimen- 

 sions they would be yet more reliable. 



Now North America is getting to be pretty well dotted over with agricultural 

 experiment stations, supported by government aid, for the benefit of the agriculturist 

 and the general good of the country, and every well appointed agricultural station has 

 an entomologist attached, whose duty is to report upon the depredations done by insects, 

 in his particular district, and the means taken to prevent or lessen the same, and bulle- 

 tins are issued with more or less frequency giving the results of the work done by eaoh, 

 and the success obtained, partial or complete, or none as the case may be, and the pro- 

 bable reason for the same indicated. 



Everyone who has the opportunity of seeing the quantity of literature of this des- 

 cription that is being issued from the various stations must be impressed with the indus- 

 try exhibited in the investigations that are being made into the life and habits of insect 

 pests, and the best means to be used in preventing their ravages. Now as each of these 

 entomologists is in great measure working independently of all the others, and may not 

 be informed as to the department that others are engaged in investigating until it appears 

 in the bulletins of their respective stations, there cannot help but be a good deal of 



