In his great ‘History of applied entomology’, published in 1930, Dr L. O. Howard, for many years the most distinguished leader in this field, remarks on the apparent inability of academic men to realize the scientific interest of entomological studies having any practical significance. This attitude, he suggests, is indicated clearly enough by the failure of the great scientific academies in various countries to elect economic entomologists, as such, to their fellowships. He points out that although Antonio Berlese and Filippa Silvestri in Italy were early elected to the Academy of the Lincei and Paul Marchal in France to the Academy of Sciences, this was due to their achievements in pure entomology, that is, as a branch of zoology. Dr Howard himself was not elected to the American National Academy until his 59th year. ‘I have a suspicion’, he adds, ‘that, if it had been thoroughly understood by the members of the academy that he’ (the writer) ‘was so pronouncedly utilitarian in his work and his views, he might have failed.’ This attitude has not greatly changed. It may even be said, that from the standpoint of the entomologist, it has changed rather for the worse. There was a time when the great Academies looked with interest on the work of the entomological taxonomists on which the whole structure of entomological science is erected. They are still interested in investigators who use insects as material in genetics, physiology or biochemistry; but they are, in general, little interested in the entomologist who devotes himself to insects as insects. Perhaps this attitude has not notably impeded the advance of entomology; but it does tend to separate the Academies in a rather regrettable way from one of the main currents of biological work in which their influence would be beneficial and from which they themselves might draw some useful lessons. It is therefore a pleasure to record that the Royal Society of London, by its election of Guy Marshall as a Fellow, in 1923, recognized the important part he had already played in the development of applied entomology in the Commonwealth and thus provided him, during the many years of active work that were to follow, with the strong backing the Fellowship of the Society carries. I suspect that the arguments for Marshall’s election were drawn from his research in pure entomology and had to do chiefly with his experiments in relation to the theory of mimicry; but I do not wish to stress this point, preferring for once to say, that the end justified the means.
ANTONIO DE ULLOA, DISCOVERER OF PLATINUM