The Biological Control of an Insect in Fiji

Abstract

WORKERS in the field of applied science are often reproached by their academic colleagues engaged in pure science with their failure to publish their methods and results and with the sketchy and inadequate character of what they do publish. This complaint is based, to some extent at least, on a misunderstanding of the object of applied science, which is not, primarily, the discovery of truth, but simply the production of facts. We call in the medical man to cure our rheumatism, and the builder to put up our house. We do not expect them to write monographs on these subjects, and we should feel rather dissatisfied if we found that they were doing this instead of getting on with the job for which we paid them. A certain continuous pressure brought to bear on the economic worker often prevents him effectively from exploiting the scientific byproducts of his work ; and in some cases this pressure is probably both necessary and justifiable.

The Biological Control of an Insect in Fiji

An Account of the Coconut Leaf-mining Beetle and its Parasite Complex. By T. H. C. Taylor. Pp. 239 + 23 plates. (London: Imperial Institute of Entomology, 1937.) n.p.