216 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 16 
definite organization is a more efficient means of advancing our science, 
was recognized as early as the second annual meeting of this Association 
held in November, 1889, when C. V. Riley said: “In regard to the 
gathering of statistical information the work of the Department at 
Washington could be greatly facilitated by the assistance of different 
entomologists in their respective territories.” 
By the time of the third meeting of this Association in 1891 the idea 
of survey work was so well formulated ii> the minds of these pioneers of 
American entomology, that Riley, Osborn, and Smith were appointed as 
a committee of the Association to go into the matter of insect-damage 
statistics. 
In 1893 the Division of Entomology inaugurated a systematic Insect 
Pest Survey, of which Dr. Howard said, before the Washington Ento¬ 
mological Society at its January meeting in 1895: “I have planned an 
extensive investigation of the question and am engaged in plotting on a 
large scale the actual distribution and injurious occurrence of about 150 
of our most destructive species, and in this work I hope to have the 
assistance of most of our entomologists. The whole subject is one 
which is fraught with the greatest difficulty as well as interest. The 
broad subject of natural geographical distribution of animals and plants 
is a sufficiently complicated one but it becomes still further complicated 
when we come to consider the actual and possible distribution of culti¬ 
vated species. One small phase of this subject enters naturally into 
the work of the economic entomologists, although it has, as yet, re¬ 
ceived no attention. This phase is expressed in the query, How far 
will a given injurious insect follow its natural food plants when the geo¬ 
graphical range of the latter is extended by artificial means ? This is a 
question which can be answered satisfactorily only by a study of each 
individual injurious species and the facts concerning its origin and 
present spread, as well as by a study of the laws governing the dis¬ 
tribution of the food plant.” 
Dr. Merriam was present at this meeting of the Society and said that 
Dr. Howard’s paper, in which a number of the more injurious species are 
correlated with the life zones which he himself had so recently de¬ 
lineated, was the first direct proof of his proposition that there is a 
direct practical bearing to the question of life zones. 
The series of maps mentioned by Dr. Howard at that time were 
continued for a number of years, but the rapidly growing interest in 
such important economic pests as the San Jose scale, the cotton boll 
weevil, disease bearing insects and other matters of pressing importance, 
