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the circular despatch to which he had referred should be sent out, asking the various Colonies which were not self-governing whether they would co-operate with the Committee or not, and whether the Committee would be of use to them. It was evident that in many cases that despatch was not understood, and in others, it seemed to be assumed that the object of the Committee was to collect insects. The Com- mittee had no intention of collecting insects; insects were of no value to it, except from the importance they bore to the Colony which sent them. If a Colony wished the Committee to assist it, it must send specimens of its insects, because the Com- mittee could not get on without them. But, apart from that, these insects were kept in the museum for the use of classes dealing with instruction generally-for purposes of education.

With regard to the assistance which the Committee could give to Colonies in respect of entomological work, he must say at once that they could not do any prac- tical work in connexion with entomology. The function of the Committee was not to assist the individual planters of a Colony, but to aid the Entomologist who was working for the planter. The Entomologist who was appointed to a post in a tropical country, and had come out from England having no knowledge of the insects of the country to which he went, was placed at a disadvantage: he was far removed from museums, libraries, and similar institutions, and it was extremely difficult for him to understand, and know the names of, the insects with which he had to deal. The purely scientific work of naming insects was not, in the opinion of the Committee, the function of a Colonial Government Entomologist; his business was to attend to remedial measures, studying the habits of the insects and giving practical assistance to planters. Therefore, there should be some central body to which a man so situated could refer, with the object of getting purely scientific work done for him. From the periodicals that were being issued, it would appear that the work of practical and scientific entomology was now enormous and increasing every year, and it was impossible for a man like that to study and keep himself abreast of what was being done. And the same was applicable to Entomologists in other Colonies. Hence it seemed to him that a Committee of this kind would be of great value to the practical worker in the field; it took work off his hands, and that work was done in England, where they had some of the best museums in the world. That was the assistance which was to be given to the Entomologist, and not directly to the planter.

In order to arrive at some idea as to the requirements of the Entomologists of the West Indies, it was suggested by the President of this Conference that he should have an informal discussion with them as to their views on the subject, and, as a result of that discussion, they had drawn up a short report which they had asked him to present in their name, and which he would now read :-

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REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ENTOMOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE WEST INDIES.

[See Enclosure in No. 20.]

Mr. MARSHALL, proceeding, said that the method by which the Entomological Research Committee would deal with any work coming from the West Indies had not been discussed by his Committee, but they had left him a free hand in making any suggestions that might appear feasible. It was, of course, difficult to estimate what that work was going to be; the greater the value of the Committee, the greater would be the amount of work thrown on the institution; but he suggested that the best way of dealing with it would be for the members of the Committee to appoint a Scientific Assistant, whose work would be confined to dealing with questions affect- ing the West Indies. The insects sent in by them would be dealt with by him, and he would have to attend to all correspondence connected with them; and he (Mr. Marshall) estimated that that could be done at an initial cost of £250 a year, so that this was the amount that he should suggest that the various Governments and Administrations should consider whether they might see their way to contribute.

He might now say a word with regard to the work of the local Entomologists in the West Indies. It seemed to him that they were working under considerable difficulties in many respects, and he was pleased to find what excellent work they were doing. He wished to draw special attention to the very valuable book which had just been brought out by Mr. H. A. Ballou, which should be of very great practical assistance to the planters in controlling pests which caused them so much

• Insect Pests of the Lesser Antilles, issued by the Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture.

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damage. He would like, moreover, if possible, to see some attempt made to estimate in actual money the amount of damage that is being done to valuable crops in the West Indies by insect pests alone. He did not believe that the average man realised what it cost him. One would like to see more entomological work done. who had to find the money in these Colonies would say that there was a continual growing expense; but he believed that if they would try to ascertain what was being lost through damage by insects, they would open their eyes, and would spend a little more money in combating these pests. There was another point. A sugges- tion had been made to him that he should submit some report embodying suggestions with regard to the work to be done in the West Indies. He must say that he had no knowledge of the insect pests of the New World. This was his first visit to the West Indies, and even if he were capable of doing so, he did not think it was the right thing to call in outside specialists to do work of this sort, and thus minimise the work of the local men. A man was brought out; he had no knowledge of the place; he had to pick the brains of the local men; and he got all the credit and they got none. The object of the Entomological Research Committee was not to do that. When the Colonial Premiers were at home last year, several members of the Com- mittee met and discussed the matter, and it was suggested that they should form a central Bureau, similar to the Bureau at Washington, for the whole Empire. The principle involved was discussed, but the several details were not worked out; the matter was under the consideration of the Colonial Governments concerned. hoped that it would be brought to a successful conclusion; the West Indies would derive more benefit than from the smaller scheme which he had suggested to them.

Sir FREDERICK J. CLARKE (Barbados): I have much pleasure in moving the adoption of the Report presented by Mr. Marshall. On the receipt of the despatch from the Colonial Office to which Mr. Marshall has referred the Government of Barbados appointed a Committee to consider it. I had the honour to be Chairman of that Committee, and on that Committee we had the Superintendent of Agricul- ture and other men in the Colony-physicians in practice and others who were likely to be able to give the Government the information they required; but I am afraid that, misunderstanding the purport of that despatch, we went on entirely wrong lines, and it has been a great pleasure to me to meet Mr. Marshall here and learn from him exactly what was intended; and I have no doubt that, now that the matter is understood, the Governments of these various Colonies will give substantial support to the scheme proposed by Mr. Marshall. I have not a word to say against

He

the Bureau of Agriculture at Washington; as a matter of fact we all should he deeply grateful for the assistance that it has always been willing to render us. But

I think that it is extremely humiliating for the Colonies of a great Empire to have to ask favours of a bureau of a foreign country; and if for no other reason than to save this humiliation that we have been subjected to all this time we should give the support that Mr. Marshall has asked for the Entomological Research Committee.

Professor P. CARMODY (Trinidad): I have much pleasure in seconding that. The Report was adopted unanimously.

REPORT OF THE NOMENCLATURE COMMITTEE OF The Agricultural CONFERENCE.

Mr. G. A. K. MARSHALL next presented the following Report of the Committee appointed, at an earlier stage of the session, to deal with the question of unifying the nomenclature of the insect and fungus pests of plants known in the West Indies, with regard to which there is considerable confusion at present:—

A meeting of the Nomenclature Committee of the West Indian Agricultural Conference was held at the Queen's Park Hotel on Wednesday, January 24th, and on board the R. M .S.“ Balantia" on January 26th, 1912.

After a preliminary discussion it was decided that, in order to obtain some degree of uniformity in the scientific and popular names of pests of the principal crops occurring in the several Colonies of the West Indies, the following recommenda- tion should be put forward, namely that the Committee proposes that each Colony should form a collection of the principal pests, to be sent in the first instance to the Imperial Department of Agriculture, with the scientific name and the popular name or names by which each may be known in the particular Colony. The collection thus formed should be circulated subsequently among all the contributing Colonies, in order that the specialists on the respective staffs may have an opportunity of forming an opinion on the various identifications. After this collection has been circulated,

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