Notes

Abstract

THE fifth “Exposition des Insectes utiles et des Insectes nuisibles,” arranged under the auspices of the Société Centrale d'Apiculture et d'Insectologie, has been held during the last four weeks in the Orangery of the Tuileries, and closed on Sunday. The first exhibition of the kind was held at the Palais de I'Industrie, in 1865, there was a second in 1868, and at the third, in 1872, it was determined to make it bi-annual. The society has three separate committees, one on apiculture, one on sericiculture, and one on general insectology, which sit once a month, and the exhibitions are likewise divided into three corresponding sections. The section devoted to apiculture was much like the bee shows held at the Crystal and Alexandra Palaces, and included a show not only of different breeds of bees, but all appliances employed or suggested as improvements. We naturally have not in England any shows analogous to the section of sericiculture as silkworm rearing is here, only an amusement and not a business. Nor, unfortunately, have we any exhibitions analogous to the section of general insectology, and here it would be well if we learnt a lesson from our French neighbours. The society is endeavouring in various ways to educate the country to a knowledge of the distinction of what insects are useful and what are destructive to crops, granaries, garden-produce, wood, textile fabrics, &c. For this purpose they encourage the formation of collections of insects, each destructive species being accompanied by an illustration of what it preys on. In this respect we are in point of quality still ahead, for the best collection there was not so good as ours at Bethnal Green, made by Mr. Andrew Murray, F.L.S. They were, however, able to show several collections, while we have but one. But besides this they use the elementary schools of the country as a channel for instruction. They offer prizes to these schools for essays and for magnified drawings of insects, the work of the pupils. On one of the tables in the exhibition, a number of the essays were exhibited, and on the walls many of the drawings were shown. The Morning Post in speaking of the entomological collection at the Bethnal Green Museum alluded especially to the drawings made by Mr. Andrew Murray, and suggested they should be used as copies in art schools, and that thus the information they teach would be scattered over the country. This same kind of idea is, it seems, already carried out in France. The drawings there, however, are outline pen and ink sketches only, sometimes made from the teacher's copy, sometimes the result of the pupil's own dissections. We have in England a machinery ready at hand for teaching practical entomology, viz., the Science and Art Department. It would not be a very difficult matter to add that to the list of subjects on which teaching is given and examinations are held. Those who know how much the country loses annually by insect ravages would best estimate the value of such teaching that might be turned to practical account.