ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 31 



Canada prohibits the importation of nursery stock from the United States ; at the same 

 time several of these States have enacted laws which enforced to the letter would be- 

 come quite prohibitory in their effects. The most of this trouble has come from the 

 appearance of that pernicious little pest the San Jose Scale, Aspidiotus perniciosus, which 

 we, in all probability, first received from the west. 



Now, this method of dealing with the problem of insect control cannot b9 said to be 

 all wrong, as some of it is quite necessary and proper, but there is certainly a great deal 

 of misdirected effort being put forth and commerce is suffering therefrom to a consider- 

 able extent. It is the beginning of insect legislation, and first attempts at anything are 

 usually more or less crude and capable of improvement. It is all right for Cape Colony 

 to protect her growing fruit interests by keeping certain fruit pests out of South Africa, 

 by prohibiting the importation of nursery stock, liable to infection, and keeping these 

 Acts in force until such time as the pests have either become exterminated or some method 

 discovered whereby the nursery stock can be effectually disinfected and rendered safe. If 

 the Australasian Colonies had, years ago, united on a uniform code that would apply to 

 all ports alike and admitted nursery stock and green fruits after an examination and dis- 

 infection, as has b9en done at the port of San Francisco, California, during the last 

 few years, they would not now be contending against each other. If we in America had 

 taken similar steps in the matter of insect legislation fifty years ago, we would in all 

 probability have escaped much of the insect depredations of the present, as the major 

 part of our seriously injurious species in this country are of foreign origin. 



It is of course, too late, now, to prevent what has already been done, but it is not 

 too late to take measures to prevent further importations from both east and west. In 

 our efforts to suppress the insect pests that we already have with us, we are overlooking 

 the greater problem of prevention of future similar introductions. We are laying alto- 

 gether too much stress upon individual effort, as put forth by States, Colonies or Pro- 

 vinces against each other, and entirely losing sight of the international aspects of the 

 problem. We cannot seem to diabuse our minds of the idea that political lines have 

 something to do with the management of these natural organisms, and cannot apparently 

 grasp the idea that natural barriers may be utilized by one or more nations acting in 

 unity, and for the direct benefit of all thus acting. Sometime in the future, though 

 neither you nor I may live to see it come to pass, these arbitrary, imaginary lines will, in 

 problems of this sort, be lost sight of, and there will appear in their stead lines of another 

 sort, far less imaginary and more natural, and these will encompass not one nation alone, 

 but one or many as the case may be. We shall then designate these areas by a term now 

 unknown, except to scientific ears, viz., Zoogeographical Regions, and while these may 

 vary somewhat from the outlines laid down by Wallace, in his "Geographical Distribu- 

 tion of Animals," yet they will probably cover much the same areas as there indicated. 

 There will probably continue to occur cases like that of the Colorado Potato Beetle, where 

 a species may spread from one section of a Zoogeographical Region over, and become 

 destructive in, many portions of the remainder, yet these phenomena are likely to occur 

 but rarely. We may learn that the Almighty can make a better barrier, over or around 

 which insects cannot make their way, than the wisest of men or the mightiest of nations. 

 There are phenomena connected with the geographical distribution of insects for which 

 we cannot, with our present knowledge, account. There are boundaries beyond which 

 certain species do not make their way, though to the human eye and mind there are no 

 obstructions in the way of their doing so. The science of applied entomology is yet in 

 its infancy, and we have very much to learn even of our most common species of insects, 

 but we can even now see the unnatural and impractical methods that we are trying to 

 apply toward their control, as between one portion of the world and another. We try 

 to erect legal barriers where none exist in nature, and ignore those which nature has pro- 

 vided. All of this, of course, applies to protection from future importations, and not to 

 such as have already gained a foothold, these last being beyond the scope of my paper, as 

 I have restricted it, and the management of these will depend largely upon the energy and 

 care of the people inhabiting the territory over which such species are now distributed. 

 There is, however, a very important phase of the problem of controlling these pests, 



