The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-06-25
MEN. WON-EN
 AND THINGS
The insect youth are on the wing, Eager to taste the honeyed Spring."


 suggest the drowsy hum of bees, but un- fortunately insects are not willing to con- fine themselves to tasting "the honeyed spring. but are carnivorous.
 l write feeljngly, for I spent after noon at Camp Andrews, and in strolling over the hills I became a veritable hive for the voracious little insects which go
 under the name of red bugs; and they are persistent little 'boogers," and are, to be more accurate borers. for. they start in one side of limb or body and from the way they hurt, seem in rapid
 transit to come out on the other side. Now, while my mind was so vividly on the insect problem, which has become acute personal one, it was bit strange that should have come across in a lead ing English journal that the chief ento- mologists of the British empire were in conference in London to take counsel to- gether, and had been welcomed by Lord Harcourt and made a N.sit to the Zoolog- teal Society.
 l put in disclaimer an entomologist, and confess that it wascuRy recently that had any idea of the great work being done in insectology by the insectologers. used to think that people who devoted themselves to insects were wasting their time. I recall with what supreme con- tempt I greeted the information that one of my Vienna professors was the great est living authority on the flea. If you have never had your eyes opened to the services which the entomologist | is rendering mankind in his fight against pests visit to Auburn and peep into the department over which Dr. Hinds presdes will convince you that 1t is not mere academic question for pro- fessors and scientists to fight over in re- gard to classification and nomenclature, but that it goes to the very root, not only of crops, but of health
 My interest late in life in agriculture, horticulture, arboricuture and all the other cultures" put me wise to the fact that insects could not be safely ignored. The first quarter of this century will long 1 be noted in the annals of medicine with the discovery of the vast part insects and ticks play in the spread of diseases of various kinds. They fasten both upon ! men and animals. The case of bubonic plague reported recently from an Ala bama seaport and the tick eradication warfare are illustrations.
 
 1 Some of the worst plaques which in- 1 fest long-suffering human beings and anil 1 mals, such as malaria, typhus, trench fever. enteric are either directly con- veyed through the punctured skin or in- directly by means of food which has been 1 fouled by flies or other insects. This is why the campaign being waged by Dr. Bowling, the health officer, is of such 1 vital interest to the people of Birming- able protection of the foodstuffs offered i fo- sale.
 | I would not say on my own responsible | ity that the study of insects is more inn pcrtant than the study of languages, but will merely state that this was the slogan adopted by the English colonial office at the beginning of the twentieth century. 1 One thing is certain, insects are being ever before in the history of the world. All civilized governments have bureaus I whose business it is to make study of entomology, not merely to chronicle their | findings as scientific data, but to be used | to protect mankind and the crops upon which human beings subsist.
 l One editor, in thinking over the matter of the eternal vigilance necessary to be
 ent time man is lord of creation and it
 is sometimes asked if there is any creature lower in the scale of life which
 might wrest from him his postion?" This
 is something which never worried me.
 but as difficult as it would be to imagine
 final defeat of mankind by any other
 mammal or by bird or reptile or fish,
 his displacement by insects, according to
 scme insectologers. is possibility. ! It seems silly, does it not? And yet in lsupport or It we are reminded that
 Uganda had to cede large territory to
 the tsetse fly, for the ravages of sleep
 ing sickness were arrested only by evacu-
 ating the natives from the shores of the lake, Mosquitoes dispute the tropics with l man. Plague leaps from patient to patient
 with fleas Only few days ago a friend
 from New Orleans was boasting that after an expenditure of millions of dol
 lars the Crescent City was now rat-proof. The University of Vienna professor was
 not wasting his time, but working in the
 interest of his fellow man. The harm 1 less house fly is more dangerous than all
 the wild beasts of the jungle
 | have seen the statement made in high
 quarters that the ravages of insects do
 more damage to crops than the vagaries of the weather, and give the deciding fac
 tor in tue success or failure of cultivation.
 Our stored harvest, our reserves of food,
 clothing are objects of their attacks Take
 the one item of clothing and it would
 shock the citizens of Birmingham if they
 had any way of knowing the large sum of money paid yearly as tribute to the
 moth. They have cost me quite tidy
 sam.
 1 In ancient history 1t was the pesky icaterpillar which was feared and herated