A review of the results of this project, which took only 2 years and was carried on in a relatively limited area, demonstrates that we know too little about how many insect pests occur in the United States and that our present knowledge concerning the distribution of most insect pests is still far from complete. Systematic, intensive searches of this type are the only satisfactory means of filling these important gaps in our knowledge of the insects that quietly work away in our gardens, fields, and orchards.

A COMPILATION of the insects known to occur in a given State or locality has value when information is needed promptly about the distribution, seasonal occurrence, host-plant relationships, and economic importance of a species. Such lists can be prepared only from reliable records, maintained through the years, of authentically identified specimens and supplemented by summarizing similar records in the entomological literature. Valuable lists of this type have been published by New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Kansas.

A FEDERAL SURVEY of insect pests has been carried on since 1921. The service was established to provide a medium through which all entomologists could keep more closely in touch with current insect conditions throughout the country and to serve as a repository for miscellaneous field observations previously available to only a few persons. Collaborators, chiefly State entomologists and entomologists in the agricultural experiment stations, State universities and agricultural colleges, and Federal entomological workers are encouraged to submit notes or reports on observations regarding the occurrence, abundance, distribution, destructiveness, and host-plant relationships of insect pests throughout the country. Upon receipt in the Insect Pest Survey office, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, Washington 25, D. C., the data are analyzed and abstracted, and the information believed to have permanent value is filed so that it remains readily available. A cross-reference index to all of the insects known to affect any given species of plant is maintained. From May 1921 to May 1942, a publication known as the Insect Pest Survey Bulletin was compiled and issued monthly, and an annual summary of insect conditions was published at the end of each year to furnish entomological workers information on the distribution, abundance, and destructiveness of insect pests in the country. More detailed information on the ecology, distribution, and destructiveness of specific pests of major economic importance, such as the European corn borer, Japanese beetle, and others, is published from time to time in the form of special supplements. The activities were curtailed in 1942 because of lack of funds, and publication of the Insect Pest Survey Bulletin was discontinued. Brief monthly and annual statements summarizing available information on the status of a few of the more important economic pests replaced the Bulletin.

In 1951 the agricultural agencies in each State were invited to participate in a plan to make this service more useful to all agricultural workers throughout the country. As a result, since July 1951 information on the status of insects of economic importance is made available every 2 weeks in a statement known as the Cooperative Economic Insect Report and issued by the Bureau.

An adjunct of the service has been the accumulation through the years of an index file of data on the occurrence, distribution, ecology, and host-plant relationships of more than 23,000 species of insects known to occur in this country. Additional data are added to it each year. The records are cataloged so one can furnish promptly information on the occurrence of any specific pest in a given State or county, or its national distribution, in response to the numerous requests received from Federal and State workers. An index file of the host plants from which each insect species has been recorded and of the insects recorded as attacking certain plants of economic importance has also been developed and is kept current.

A good start also was made in recording pertinent data concerning the records of insect pests in foreign countries. There are on file notes on more than 30,000 such species, obtained as the result of reviewing and abstracting the literature published in the Review of Applied Entomology through 1941. The data provide a source of ready reference when needed in connection with foreign plant quarantine activities and are a source of information whenever infestations of new foreign pests are found in the United States. The work was discontinued in 1942 because of the curtailment of funds.

THE COOPERATION of all interested agencies is important to the success of any insect survey, as the pooling of information obtained through individual effort avoids considerable duplication and permits greater and more thorough survey coverage of an area with less expenditure of manpower and funds. Thus, the more effective insect surveys in this country are carried on cooperatively by State and Federal entomological agencies. At times the aid of agricultural officials in foreign countries is sought. The more reliable surveys are made by well-trained workers or by teams of field scouts operating under close supervision of such personnel. Adequately trained workers are thoroughly familiar with the insect or insects concerned and know the essential facts about their life history, food plants, and habits. They know how to search for a pest new to an area, how to measure insect abundance in relation to damage or crop values, and how to determine the degree of destruction likely to result from an infestation of a given intensity. They also know just where to look and what to look for. They know that transportation centers, especially those associated with foreign commerce or the movement of agricultural commodities, are most likely to reveal a new infestation. An effective insect survey requires careful advance planning, with provision to insure the adequate recording of essential data and weeding out of the unessentials that merely serve to clutter up the files.

Surveys are the basis of intelligent insect control programs whether in one row of bush beans in the home garden or a grasshopper control program in several States. In order to know what action is required and when it should be applied, we must first look the situation over to be sure what pest needs to be combated and whether it is present in numbers sufficient to warrant treatment. Surveys are the only sure means of providing such information. Regardless of the kind, expense, or trouble, the surveys are essential if we are to keep the upper hand in the constant battle against the insect enemies.

G. J. HAEUSSLER, a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, joined the Department in 1925. He was engaged for 16 years in investigations on the biological control of fruit insects, and in that connection spent 3 years in southern Europe and 2 years in Japan studying the oriental fruit moth and its natural enemies. He was in charge of the division of insect survey and information, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, from 1944 to 1951, when he became leader of the Bureau's division of truck crop and garden insect investigations.

R. W. LEIBY is a professor of economic entomology in Cornell University. Formerly he was State entomologist in North Carolina where he did research in economic entomology and later had charge of work on plant quarantines. In North Carolina he was actively interested in insect surveys and contributed to the collection and published list of insects of that State.

Potato tuberworm.