phasis will appear to be placed on inspection, the limitations of which have in very recent years been recognized. The book is remarkably free from grammatical and typographical error. Furthermore, the good quality of paper, the large bold type and the pleasing cover should make the book a welcome addition to the library of the dairyman, dairy inspector, milk examiner, milk distributer, public health official and others who are at all interested in the field which the author has covered. LEO F. RETTGER SPECIAL ARTICLES THE OVIPOSITION HABIT OF GASTROPHILUS NASALIS L. In a short article recently published in the Canadian Entomologist, Vol. L., No. 7, July, 1918, pp. 246-248, entitled "Note on Oviposition of Gasterophilus nasalis L.," Dr. C. H. T. Townsend makes the statement that he has observed this species darting at the muzzle of a horse, leaving "whitish eggs with their sharp bases penetrating and adhering in the skin of the upper lip." Unfortunately for the proof of this observation the eggs were lost, but the author states that similar eggs were dissected from the abdomen of the fly. In the same note the author remarks that the egg of nasalis "is practically the same size and shape as that of intestinalis and that by reason of the moderately pointed anal end it is capable of penetrating tender skin." Dr. Townsend concludes that the attachment of the eggs of nasalis to the hairs of the host only happens inadvertently when the fly misses its true mark, namely, the tender skin of the lips. It is not unlikely that Dr. Townsend may be capable of distinguishing the eggs of G. hæmorrhoidalis from those of the other two species by reason of its black color, but it is rather unfortunate that he should say that the egg of G. nasalis is of the same size and shape as that of G. intestinalis. The eggs are absolutely distinct both as regards shape and attachment to the hair, and the egg of G. nasalis is certainly not adapted for the penetration of the host's skin. Far from the deposition of the eggs of G. nasalis on the hairs of the throat being accidental, it has been my experience that this is almost invariable. Occasionally, as many as six to eight eggs have been found on a single hair. The adult fly so far as I am aware, has never been seen to strike at the lips but always at the hairs of the skin between the mandibles and sometimes on the hairs of the cheek. The eggs of all three species are transversely striated, a fact to which Dr. Townsend probably refers when he remarks on the transversely corrugated structure of the chorion of the egg of G. nasalis. But to add that these striations in the case of the latter egg serve to retain the egg in the skin after it is inserted is purely fictitious. It is undoubtedly true that the stalked egg of G. hæmorrhoidalis which is invariably found attached to the short hairs of the lips, often appears to penetrate the skin. Repeated examination has shown, however, that the clasping stalk may sometimes enter the hair follicle and thus give the impression that it is actually inserted in the skin. In summing up, it is my opinion that Dr. Townsend has conceived of his ideas from observations that are quite inaccurate and that in a more detailed study of the habits of botflies he would find nasalis never "strikes" at the lips of the horse, and certainly in my experience it has never been known to oviposit there. The American Association for the Advance- The Need of Conservation of Our Vital and Natural Resources as emphasized by the THE NEED OF CONSERVATION OF OUR THE great war, now ended, frightful as have It has been a cheap and easy criticism to stigmatize our people as money-loving, self- centered, and materialistic, and this characteri- zation, apparently generally held in Germany as a true picture of the people of the United States and of our national life, has, by some, even here at home, been more or less accepted as correct. The great soul of the American people, their intense patriotism and love of country, their devotion to ideals of right and of self-sacrifice and altruism, were not dor- mant but were hidden. We have enough of the Anglo-Saxon of our English brethren in us still not to seek to parade our better traits in boasting self-assertion-but when the time of trial and sacrifice comes, our people re- spond, and respond as a nation. A marked instance of this national trait was given in our treatment of Cuba twenty years ago. It was incredible to some of our foreign critics that this country could enter into a war with Spain solely to remedy the abuses of her government of Cuba, and to free Cuba, yet the event showed that such was actually the case -and now the world recognizes that we en- tered into the world-war just ended, solely and only as a matter of high national duty-and with no thought of national gain in money, trade or territory, but only because we recog- 1 Address of the Vice-President and Chairman of Section of Engineering of the American Asso- nized a great duty to the fulfillment of which we must devote ourselves and to which we gave our national life and our nation's full resources. But while our country entered on this task with no thought of gain, we have, in the accomplishment of duty, received great gain, not only in the spiritual uplift as a nation that we must feel in the realization of what as a nation we have done, but in the material benefits that have come to us from the new conditions forced by war necessities in our business life. These conditions are so many and involve such large and complex issues that they are staggering in their contemplation. Take the railroad situation alone, and consider the immense gain and enlightenment to the country resulting from the far-reaching changes in the government's attitude toward railroad management, necessitated by the war. For years for a generation-thoughtful and informed men have realized the want of logic and of business sense typified and enforced by national legislation in the Sherman Act and by the countless restrictive impositions of state legislatures on the proper and businesslike management of our railroads-preventing pooling-forcing in the fierce competition for business the routing of freight over unnecessarily long routes-compelling absurdly low rates for service and other restrictions generally having their incentive in political expediency rather than in careful economic study. The public has erroneously been taught to believe that drastic uneconomic competition between our railroads, and also between our industries, should be encouraged, and indeed enforced as the law of the land, instead of the encouragement of wise economic cooperative regulation and understanding, tending to secure the best results at a minimum of waste in effort and money. The war came-urgent war needs in transportation involving the transport of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and of enormous quantities of material, made essential cooperative management of our transportation lines. A Director-General of Railroads was appointed --and presto, in a night shall we say-all the unnecessary and vexatious restrictions on cooperative methods in our transportation systems were set aside the government instinctively adopted business methods in the management of business enterprises, the Sherman Act was ignored, and the Interstate Commerce Commission was relegated for the time to dignified isolation and a condition of innocuous desuetude. For years the railroads had urged and shown the impossibility of keeping up their plants and equipment and of rendering due and proper service without proper and adequate remuneration in freight and passenger rates. The government, suddenly saddled with the actual responsibility of operation, and brought fact to face with a realization that the railroads it had taken over could not be run on air, brushed aside statute law and political criticism, and summarily, as a war measure, raised the charges for passenger and freight service, in reality a measure long needed in peace and the public accepted it all-and labor benefited by increases in pay which the public was forced to provide. In industry the same lesson was enforced by the war. We were suddenly brought to an appreciation of the fact that Germany's conservation policy in her support of the practise of cooperative effort rather than that of destructive competition had built up an organization of economic strength that enabled her, from her national resources at home, without outside aid, to play the aggressive and enormously strong part she maintained up to the very end of the war. The war has, in transportation and in national industry, taught and enforced on our nation-quick to learn-these lessons of waste in the past and of future economic management by joint cooperative effort, and of all the lessons of conservation of our resources taught by the war, those of needed cooperative effort in our railroad and industrial interests are perhaps the most prominent and important in a material sense, and the lesson has been one not only to and for the public and our national and state authorities, but one by which those interests are directly benefiting. The railroad While, as a war measure, the temporary possession and operation of our railroads by the government was necessary, the continuance of such a system in peace, or of any measure of government ownership with its political evils, would be a calamity depriving the traveling public of the efficient operation naturally coming from the initiative and enterprise and sense of responsibility attending individual management, and always absent where governmental red tape and autocratic authority rule, regardless of the comfort or needs of the public. Some reasonable, responsible governmental oversight or control of these great interests is without doubt necessary. The war urgency, the more intimate relations that war needs have established between governmental agencies and railroad and industrial managers, must and will lead to the establishment of systems of regulation not destructive but constructive in character, that will operate to the lasting benefit of our country. The need of conservation and development of our latent water-power resources has been emphasized by the war. For years, since the public study of the conservation of our natural resources was initiated in 1908 by President Roosevelt's call for a conference of governors of our states to consider the matterthe National Conservation Congress, and Conservation and Forestry Associations throughout the country, have studied the problem of how best to conserve, and yet to use the country's natural resources, in water-power, and in our mines and forests. When we were brought by this war to realize our dependence on Chili for our supply of nitrates in the manufacture of ammunition, while Germany had evolved and developed economical methods of utilizing her water powers and of extracting nitrogen from the air, we were taught another lesson in conservation and of the folly of our dilatory laissez-faire system of dealing with the water problem. Under war pressure greater progress has perhaps been made than would have been possible in many years of deliberate peace methods. Serious differences of opinion have existed in the past as to the proper measure of governmental control that should be exercised in the development and use of the great latent water powers of the west, and enabling legislation has been impeded and halted by visionary and wholly unpractical objections to such reasonable and liberal legislation as would encourage capital to enter into and support such development. As a wise westerner has said of the development of the west in the past: "The western country was never settled, and never could have been settled, with thirty cents and an infant class," and conservation of our natural resources was well defined by Dr. C. W. Hayes, when chief geologist of the U. S. Geological Survey, as utilization with a maximum efficiency and a minimum waste." 66 It is the use, and the avoidance of the abuse, of our natural resources, that conservation properly teaches, not the locking up of these resources. Now in this urgent, intensive war experience a broader national vision has developed. We have learned and have become accustomed to figure in billions, where we used to fear that millions would be wasteful. The government has taken hold of great questions with a giant hand, and has, by its conversion to the truth that in its conduct of great enterprises great men, experienced in the work contemplated, should be used rather than avoided with suspicion, accomplished great resultsand the lesson has been enforced that when needed to attain results, large expenditures may lead to the greatest economy in methods and certainly to greater success in the attainment of ends. Our great corporations may, in view of the government's housing programs, be encouraged to feel that proper measures to that end are a necessary concomitant to the maintenance of satisfactory labor conditions, and are an economic necessity in large and small operations. One great lesson in conservation peculiarly applicable to our nervous, energetic, and always hard-working people, we have not yet adopted, because we are so constituted that as a nation or a race we will not learn it, is that of the better conservation of our vital re sources. The National Conservation Congress, in its several yearly sessions, has taken, among others, as subjects for study and discussion: Forestry, The Improvement of Farm Conditions, Water Powers and The Vital Resources and Health of our People. When will we learn the lessons of the last, the vital importance to our people of learning to conserve their strength. No one has better epitomized the American wastefulness of vital energy than dear old Mark Twain, who (writing from Naples in 1867), sent us these words, pregnant with the lesson of the higher conservation of life: We walked up and down one of the most popular streets for some time enjoying other people's comfort and wishing we could export some of it to our restless, driving, vitality-consuming marts at home. Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in Europe-comfort. In America, we hurry, which is well; but when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our racked bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early or drop into a mean and lean old age, at a time of life they call a man's prime in Europe. When an acre of ground has produced long and well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season; we take no man clear across the continent in the same coach in which he started; the coach is stabled somewhere on the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool for a few days; when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold an edge, the barber lays it aside for a few weeks and the edge comes back of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate objects but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges. Surely Mark was right in this. We owe a duty of watchfulness to the men, devoted to public service, who ably lead great movements for the betterment of conditions among our people-men who are not only captains of industry, but generals in the army of public service, and leaders and exemplars in the pursuit of public duty. They become in leading these great movements, in a measure, the custodians of the public welfare, but 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who shall care for these very generals, and see that they conserve the store of intelligence, patriotism and energy, that goes out from them to public welfare, that it may not be prematurely exhausted? Surely we should take measures to have them feel how the nation values them as a public asset, and how they owe it to their country as well as to their homes to heed and to preach to others the wise words of Mark Twain. We perhaps can not conclude that the great war has really taught us to better conserve our vital resources in our men and women, for they have been prodigal in expenditure of their strength in national service, but may we not hope that following the past one hundred years of uninterrupted peace between the Englishspeaking peoples of the world, the closer bond that the war has promoted between our English brethren and ourselves, while giving them a better and closer estimate of us, may bring to us a better appreciation of the value of conserving life as they conserve it, giving our nation the valued services in their advanced years of men who, under our more intensive life, would have reached their limit of useful ness. To our engineering profession is due the early study of the doctrines of conservation, later taken up by our publicists and legislators. Conservation is primarily an engineering question. At the first, the organization meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, held in May, 1871, now nearly half a century ago, which I attended, a committee was appointed "to consider and report on the |