ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 47 



duplicating of each other's work going on, and as the seasons are short for some depart- 

 ments of this kind of work, and as attention must be given to it while the opportunity 

 lasts, if the work is to be accomplished at all, many of them may not find the time for 

 reading all that is necessary to keep them informed of what others are doing in a simi- 

 lar line. This fact has recently been fully stated by one who is himself well to the front 

 in this kind of work, when he remarked that with the regular daily work of his position 

 to attend to, it was utterly impossible for him to read all the bulletins that came to his 

 office, and he requested as a favor, that any having matters of special importance that 

 they wished him to see, should mark their papers so that he might not run the risk of 

 losing the benefit of it. This statement discloses both the weakness and the needs of the- 

 entomological work that is being done in connection with the agricultural experiment 

 stations. 



The highest results in any work can only be reached by united effort under the- 

 supervision of one directing head. 



With the apparatus and methods of the weather bureau before us, it seems easy to 

 indicate a remedy for the present waste of time and energy that results from each indi- 

 vidual entomologist pursuing his vocation with reference almost exclusively to his own 

 locality, and with little information as to what others may be doing at the same time. 



It would appear then as if the pressing need of the present system to complete its 

 efficiency is a central bureau of entomological intelligence, with a person in charge appointed 

 solely for his suitability for the position, and whose whole time could be given to the- 

 work of supervision. With such a permanent, central office established for giving and! 

 receiving information upon all manner of entomological subjects, we can easily understand 

 how it would tend to unite the widely separated entomologists on the staff of the different 

 agricultural stations, making them realize that they were not working alone though 

 separate, and that each being kept informed of what the others were doing would in a 

 measure reap advantages from the other's labors. And when one considers how much has 

 already been done, largely by individual labors, we can form some estimate of how much 

 more might be accomplished by well directed united effort under intelligent guidance. 

 And as the regularly appointed entomologists increase in numbers, the greater will become- 

 the need for such a central systematizing bureau to prevent a waste of energy in dupli- 

 cating each other's work, and that these will increase rather than diminish is certain, as- 

 the value of their labors is only now beginning to be realized, and the expense of their 

 maintenance is being returned to the community a hundred fold. 



It would be an easy matter to indicate how such a bureau should be conducted, but 

 its ordinary work would be largely controlled by circumstances and necessities, as the 

 course of events required. But it would be known to exist for the express purpose of 

 receiving and disseminating all sorts of information about the doings of insects all over 

 the country, and the best means of combating or preventing their depredations. Thus,. 

 the person in charge being kept fully informed of what was going on in the insect world, 

 far and near, might be able to give warning of danger to one locality from what he had 

 been informed was going on in another; and in the case of migratory insects, only such a 

 fully informed person could indicate effective means of dealing with them, and ih such 

 a case, the meteorological and climatic conditions are of the first importance. He might 

 even be able to issue forecasts of the probabilities for the coming season. We know what 

 correct guesses Mr. Scudder made about the spread of the imported cabbage butterfly,, 

 from scant information gathered with great labor. I took my first Colorado potato beetle 

 at Hamilton, about three years in advance of the time calculated for its appearance in 

 that locality, indicating that the calculations had been made upon insufficient data. 



Then there would be bulletins issued from this central bureau, with more or less 

 frequency, as the circumstances required, which every entomologist would be sure to read, 

 as they would be expected to contain a summary of the latest intelligence of what was 

 being transacted by, for or against the insect community all over the continent, or the 

 world for that matter, which could not fail to prove of the utmost in teres! and advantage 

 to every student in that line, whether he is economic, scientific, or recreative, and would 



