9 
and I may add that they very soon afterwards apologized for having 
done so. This is not science, and but adds strength to the impression 
that some of our so-called species do not represent a desire on the part 
of the describer to add to the sum total of exact information, but rather 
an effort to add to his own personal notoriety; and when the validity 
of such species is questioned, as is often the case, we sometimes have 
presented, with painful reality, the spectacle of the two blind men. 
I say these things because they are subjects of just criticism, and 
because all over the country are men who have the most sincere 
desires to produce something that will benefit and add to the sum total 
of our science, but the institution with which they are connected will 
not, and they themselves can not, furnish the required equipment; and 
I simply wish to urge such to make a virtue of their necessities and 
direct their energies and thought in another direction, and to a field 
that is absolutely without limit, and the workers therein few and far 
between. I am very well aware that the economic entomologist is apt 
to be looked upon as a sort of a half-breed—a cross between a scientist 
and a farmer—too practical to be accepted to fellowship by the former, 
and too scientific to please the latter; but I believe that ere the next 
century is as old as this one, the honest, conscientious labors of the 
economic entomologist will have been found to have a value not alone 
as a means of enabling the husbandman to “ grow two blades of grass 
where but one grew before,” butin solving the great problem of life and 
its diffusion over the face of the globe. 
The first move to be made in any investigation is to see something, 
and the next is to learn what that something is and what it means. 
For this reason field and laboratory work must, of absolute necessity, 
go hand in hand and inseparable. Where one can not have the labora- 
tory, or if he is so situated as to be denied the field, it is a good plan to 
form a sort of partnership with someone who is in a reverse situation, 
and to work together. I am, myself, in doubt about purely systematic 
work being justifiable among economic entomologists, except in connec- 
tion with species and groups having an economic significance. For 
instance, a work on parasitic hymenoptera, with descriptions of newly 
discovered forms, is fully justified by the value of this group from an 
economic standpoint, but a revision of the butterflies would not be thus 
justified. On the other hand, I question the propriety of including the 
spraying of crops in the domain of economic entomology, as I believe 
it properly belongs with horticulture and agriculture. In other words, 
I question the right of an economic entomologist to demand or expect 
that he shall be allowed to devote the major part of his time in this 
manner, but I do believe he is justified in demanding facilities for the 
careful study of the feeding and breeding habits of nearly if not quite 
all species of insects. I would not confine such studies exclusively to 
those known to be injurious or beneficial, because we can not say how 
soon some species, not previously injurious or beneticial, may suddenly 
