[171] The Latin edition of this work is entitled Erucarum Ortus, Alimenta et Paradoxa Metamorphosis, Amsterdam, 1718. It was afterwards translated into French and published under the title Histoire des Insectes de l'Europe.
[172] Die Leistungen der deutschen Frau in den letzen vierhundert Jahren auf wissenschaftlichem Gebiebte, p. 85, von Elise Oelsner, Guhrau, 1894.
[173] In his preface to Les Maladies des Vers à Soie.
[174] It is estimated that the loss to the United States from cattle ticks alone is $100,000,000 a year. According to the year-book of the Agricultural Department for 1904, the annual losses to agriculture from destructive insects reach the enormous sum of $420,000,000.
[175] The dean of the law faculty in presenting Miss Ormerod to the vice-chancellor on this occasion and speaking before an audience of three thousand people said, among other things: "The preëminent position which Miss Ormerod holds in the world of science is the reward of patient study and unwearying observation. Her investigations have been chiefly directed towards the discovery of methods for the prevention of the ravages of those insects which are injurious to orchard, field and forest. Her labors have been crowned with such success, that she is entitled to be hailed as the protectress of agriculture and the fruits of the earth—a beneficent Demeter of the nineteenth century." Eleanor Ormerod, Economic Entomologist, Autobiography and Correspondence, Edited by Robert Wallace, p. 96, London, 1904.
[176] The Canadian Entomologist, September, 1901, in an obituary notice of Miss Ormerod, well voiced the high appreciation in which she was held throughout the civilized world in the following paragraph: "Miss Ormerod was one of the most remarkable women of the latter half of the nineteenth century and did more than any one else in the British Isles to further the interests of farmers, fruit-growers and gardeners by making known to them methods for controlling and subduing their multiform insect pests. Her labors were unwearied and unselfish; she received no remuneration for her services, but cheerfully expended her private means in carrying out her investigations and publishing their results. We know not now by whom in England this work can be continued; it is not likely that anyone can follow in the unique path laid out by Miss Ormerod; we may, therefore, cherish the hope that the Government of the day will hold out a helping hand and establish an entomological bureau for the lasting benefit of the great agricultural interests of the country." Professor J. Ritzema Bos, the distinguished entomologist of Holland, had no hesitation in proclaiming Miss Ormerod the first economic entomologist in England and one of the most famous economic entomologists in the world.
[177] The following dialogue between Mme. Coudreau and one of her boatmen, Joas-Felix, who was the spokesman of his companions, illustrates not only the bravery of the daring explorer, but also the pusillanimity of her half-breed personnel when in the depths of the forest at night:
"'Madam has no fear?'
"'Fear of what?'
"'Of tigers.'