April, ’23] 
hyslop: insect pest survey 
21 
so completely engrossed the time and very limited forces of both the 
Federal and State entomologists that the work was discontinued on 
account of insufficient co-operation. The maps, however, are now in the 
files of the Insect Pest Survey and serve as a background for early dis¬ 
tribution records of many of the more important species. 
So the Insect Pest Survey is inaugurating no new idea, it is hardly 
launching a new activity, but its work might be defined as an attempt to 
realize a long patent economic demand. 
At the Chicago meeting (1920) of this Association the Committee on 
Policy made recommendations, which were later endorsed by the 
Association as a whole, that the Bureau of Entomology establish an 
Insect Pest Survey. These recommendations maintained that: “It is 
obvious that the early recognition of recent introductions will promote 
the control of newly established pests. This is an important phase of 
economic entomology. An Insect Survey designed to ascertain the 
distribution and the extent of injury caused by various insects and to 
keep official entomologists throughout the country apprized of develop¬ 
ments during the growing season would prove of great value in forecasting 
probable injury. It is recommended that an Insect Pest Survey be 
organized under the direction of the Bureau of Entomology in co-opera¬ 
tion with official entomologists of various States or State institutions.” 
Early in March, 1921, the Insect Pest Survey was formally inaugurated 
and has functioned now for a period of nearly two years. 
As I now conceive the scope of our work, the object of the Insect 
Pest Survey is to collect accurate and detailed information on occurrences, 
distribution, ecology, and relative destructiveness of insect pests through¬ 
out the United States, to study these data from month to month, and 
year to year, with relation to the several factors that influence insect 
abundance, and to prepare this information and the conclusions drawn 
therefrom in the form of text and maps for the use of all entomological 
workers throughout the country. 
The results to be obtained from this undertaking over a series of 
years are manifold. We should be able to throw light on the reasons for 
the cyclic appearance of insect pests, the gradual shift of regions of 
destructive abundance, the limiting barriers to normal dispersal, and the 
directive influences that determine the paths of insect diffusion, and the 
relation of climatology, geography, topography, and geology, as well as 
biological complexes of flora and fauna, to insect distribution and 
abundance. The mapping of insect life zones will aid the working 
entomologist in more clearly grasping the relative importance of the 
