BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY THE EDITOR
The removal of Miss Ormerod and her sister, Georgiana, from Torquay to
Spring Grove, Isleworth, was primarily because Torquay did not suit
their health and secondarily because at Isleworth they were near Kew
Gardens, where they were on intimate terms with Sir Joseph and Lady
Hooker. They left again for Torrington House, St. Albans, in September,
1887, partly because Sir Joseph resigned the Directorship of Kew Gardens
in 1885 and partly because of the increase of population, and the
defective and unwholesome drainage of the house. In a letter (p. 74) to
Dr. Bethune, one of her esteemed Canadian correspondents, she refers to
her impending change of residence.
DUNSTER LODGE, SPRING GROVE, ISLEWORTH.
_August 7, 1887._
“MY DEAR MR. BETHUNE,—I have very often lately been hoping to
hear of your safe arrival, and I am very glad to hear of it; but
I am so sorry that I cannot have the great pleasure of seeing
you to-morrow, for I have to be at St. Albans to meet a number
of people on business from noon till 4 p.m. This is a great
disappointment to me, for I (we) had much looked forward to a
chat with you. I am longing to hear of my kind friends in Canada
and especially of Mr. Fletcher and Professor Saunders, and I
want much to ask you how to transmit so much of a set of my
entomological publications as I can get together for acceptance
by the Entomological Society of Ontario.[35] I cannot tell you
how much I respect and admire the working of that noble Society,
and I feel myself greatly honoured by being elected one of its
members. Hessian fly (fig. 15) is indeed becoming a scourge—and
the work is enormous—it is a different story now to when I was
so roundly sneered at last year for thinking it had come. If we
had our grand Entomological Society of Ontario here things might
have been very different. I trust you may be able to spare, if
only one hour to give us just time to confer a little on your
return. I would put aside any ordinary engagement for the
pleasure and also the benefit of an entomological conversation.
But now about my sister and myself. This place is fast becoming
very unsuitable for us—you will know all that is involved in the
rapid increase of the outskirts of London—and we have a notice
of most of our garden going to be offered for sale next year for
small building plots. Therefore we are making arrangements to
move about the end of next month to St. Albans. We have many
good friends and fellow-workers there or near, and the place is
very healthy, and very accessible both for London and the
country, and I can, I trust, do my work much more fully there.”
Of Miss Ormerod Lady Hooker has written: “When she was our neighbour
during our residence at Kew, she was a frequent visitor at our house and
often came in the morning before public hours to the Gardens, to pursue
her researches and look for the insects to be found on the trees, shrubs
and plants; on these occasions she generally lunched with us and we
delighted in her bright and intellectual conversation. She was extremely
fond of animals and birds, and could imitate the calls of the animals
and the notes of many birds so perfectly that she could collect the
creatures around her; it was curious to see the squirrels peep out from
the trees when she called to them and venture to her feet for the nuts
she scattered for them. Her observation was always on the alert and she
saw many minute things in nature that others would have passed by. She
was a fine artist—and so was her sister, Miss G. Ormerod. At one time my
husband was needing some drawings made for the _Botanical Magazine_ and
she offered her services and drew three or four very beautifully.”
[Illustration:
PLATE XIX.
TORRINGTON HOUSE, ST. ALBANS, HERTS, MISS ORMEROD’S LAST RESIDENCE.
(_p. 115._)
]
Lady Hooker made a practice of inviting Miss Ormerod and her sister to
come over and help to entertain distinguished visitors at great
functions and on the occasion of visits of official scientific parties.
On one occasion the whole Chinese Embassy, excepting the Ambassador
himself, came in Chinese costume. Miss Ormerod asked permission of Lady
Hooker to speak to the Naturalist, who talked English very well. The
information elicited however was but trifling, amounting to the fact
that in China a yellow powder (probably flowers of sulphur) was used to
dress plants to ward off disease. She suggested tea as an escape from a
disappointing position and then adjourned to the tea-room followed by
the whole Embassy. The Entomologist took tea, but another minor member
of the group, being reputed at times to indulge in potations to which
the hosts were not accustomed, gave great cause for anxiety by taking
possession of a wine bottle. Miss Ormerod was successful in spiriting
the bottle away and in substituting a cup of tea, but great was her
relief when Sir Joseph and Lady Hooker arrived on the scene.
At Kew she also met Andrew Murray, Secretary of the Royal Horticultural
Society, who did excellent work in Economic Entomology for the Bethnal
Green and South Kensington Museums. Miss Ormerod described him as a
“profoundly scientific and intellectual man.”
* * * * *
An interesting instance of the widespread benefit of Miss Ormerod’s work
and the affection with which her name and personality were revered by
her distant correspondents was supplied by Dr. Lipscomb, her trusted
medical attendant. He says:—
“My sister was talking to a small market gardener in a flower garden she
was painting near Penzance, and Miss Ormerod’s name happened to be
mentioned. The old gardener was beside himself with delight to meet some
one who knew Miss Ormerod. He said she had saved him from utter ruin.
His flowers had become infected with some injurious insect which bade
fair to devastate the whole garden. In despair, hearing of Miss Ormerod,
he wrote to her and not only received a kind letter of advice, but also
a copy of her work on ‘Injurious Insects’ with the page turned down and
the paragraphs specially applicable to the case marked. No wonder the
poor old chap with tears in his eyes said he loved his unknown
benefactress.”
* * * * *
Miss Ormerod was appointed Consulting Entomologist to the Royal
Agricultural Society of England in 1882, and for ten years retained that
honourable position to the advantage of the Members and the British
public generally.
The need of a Consulting Entomologist was forcibly brought home to the
Society, then under the presidency of Mr. J. Dent-Dent, by the
disastrous attack in 1881 of the Turnip fly, or more correctly flea
beetle, which resulted in an estimated loss of over half a million
sterling to farmers in England and Scotland. Leading agriculturists all
over the country, but more from the East than the West, supplied
information for a report, and special assistance was given by some
members of the Royal Agricultural Society, including Mr. J. H. Arkwright
of Hampton Court, Herefordshire. The results were embodied in the Annual
Report for 1881, published in 1882.
A short time after this event a request was made to Miss Ormerod to
indicate whether she would accept the post of Consulting Entomologist to
the Royal Agricultural Society. Urged by Mr. Charles Whitehead, Chairman
of the “Seeds and Plant Diseases Committee,” and by her intimate
personal friend Professor Herbert Little, another member of the Council,
she accepted, but with hesitation and with considerable reluctance,
engendered by the opposition of her sister Georgiana, who believed her
strength was not equal to the strain of additional work. The meeting
with members of the Council at the Society’s offices, 12, Hanover
Square, London, at which details were discussed, was unusually trying,
in spite of the kindly courtesy of the Secretary (Mr. H. M. Jenkins) for
whom Miss Ormerod entertained the deepest regard. She says, writing in
1900, “I was nearly frightened out of my wits in going through the
requested ordeal, and the recollections of the experiences remain as
uniquely unpleasant. On arriving, I gave my card to the attendant, who
led me upstairs, where I expected to meet but two or three people, and I
was ushered into a room full of gentlemen standing waiting my arrival,
not one of whom except Professor Little was known to me even by sight. I
advanced about two feet, my sole thought being of the awkward fix in
which I had so suddenly been landed, and how I should get out of it.
Scarcely a word was spoken when I was led down again to the Secretary’s
room, where a discussion took place with Professor Little, Mr.
Whitehead, the Secretary, and the President of the Society,—the others
remained absent. In the discussion the President attempted a slight
examination of my qualifications, but it amounted to little more than
eliciting the length of time during which attention had been devoted to
Entomology. My reply was “about thirty years,” to which he had nothing
further to say. There was a slight departure from the serious nature of
the interview when a parcel of Daddy longlegs grubs which had been
placed on the table, gave way, and the creatures crawled all over the
place. The final result was, that I agreed to take the post of
Consulting Entomologist, but I returned home very uneasy in mind and
wrote the same evening that I did not wish to accept office. I was,
however, pressed into acceptance at the first business meeting and the
first work I undertook was the making of drawings to form originals for
six diagrams illustrating some common injurious insects with life
histories and methods of prevention.[36] This would be the first Tuesday
of June, 1882, and I inaugurated my position on the way home by meeting
with a severe accident at Waterloo Station, from the results of which I
have never recovered. While doubtless rather preoccupied, crossing the
road, a rapid incline from Waterloo Road to the station, I did not
notice a carriage coming down the slope till the horses’ heads were over
mine. With no time to run or turn, I sprang and landed on the pavement,
but a sharp pain set in, in the muscle above one knee. Whether it
originated from a strain or a blow I never knew, but a little flask I
carried on the injured side was beaten in as if by a horse’s foot or the
point of a carriage pole. The injury was not properly attended to and
the affected part gradually increasing and spreading gave rise to the
lameness accompanied with severe and frequently intermittent pain which
necessitated exceeding quiet and bodily inactivity—a state of matters
which was in marked contrast to the extremely active life I had led in
my early years rambling in the country, and latterly by indulging in the
mechanical in addition to the usual æsthetical pleasures of gardening.”
She explains in a letter to Dr. Fletcher, dated August 22, 1892 (p. 212)
that she was driven by failing health to resign her honorary official
work and to concentrate her energies upon her private work, which
steadily increased in volume, and especially on the work of her Annual
Report.
* * * * *
A conception of the interesting methods adopted by Miss Ormerod in
carrying out her work may be gleaned from her own words addressed to us
in the course of a long and intimate correspondence.
“I will now try and think of something you may care to insert about
languages. So far as I can avoid it, I try not to write in any language
but my own, but I can read serviceably French, Italian, and Spanish, and
also Latin for what I need; likewise, of course, German; Russian I could
read once but not so readily now; and with the dictionary I can make
something of Dutch and Norwegian.”
“Of my very special colleagues who are now gone from us, were Professor
Westwood, Life President of the Entomological Society, and Dr. C. V.
Riley, Entomologist of the Board of Agriculture of the U.S.A.; and
Professor Huxley, in days when I sat on the Council of Education
Committee of Economic Entomology, was a valued friend. It was marvellous
to see how Huxley with his towering personality led a committee. On one
occasion he asked if any one present would express an opinion on the
subject under consideration, and he rather suddenly directed his
attention to a certain member of committee, who was so startled he
nearly got frightened out of his life.”[37]
“The regular course of my work brings me into such constantly recurring
communication with the Entomological Departments of our own Colonies,
also of many of the U.S.A. States, and various Continental Societies or
specialists, that I may venture to say that as occasion occurs we
interchange—I mean the heads of the Departments and myself—friendly
observations, very beneficial and pleasant to me. The plan of my work
has long been to reply, if I could do so soundly, to every enquiry on
the day of receipt. Often investigation is needed for scientific
purposes, but a large proportion of the enquiries may be answered at
once so far as the practical needs of the enquirers are concerned. For
further purposes my custom is to work up anything new or involved that
occurs, for use in the following Annual Report. I do not devolve on my
specialist referees the researches (so far as I can ascertain the state
of the case), but they tell me if my identification is correct, or
correct it for me, and I quite invariably, if the matter be for
publication, publish also my acknowledgment. The correspondence
continues steadily all the year round, more of course in the warm
seasons of the year than at other times, but even in winter it never
ceases. My plan has generally been to store up all the observations of
the growing (and consequently insect-attacking) times of the year till
autumn, and then sort them and prepare them for the Annual Report of
that year. If some favourite subject be under discussion the letters may
be very numerous. I once had a run of 60, 80, to 100 a day for a short
time, including on one day a total of 149—but of course on such an
occasion I was obliged to get help to keep reply at all in hand. The
steady letter work of the year I estimate at about 1,500.”
* * * * *
Referring on December 27, 1889, to a proposal which had been made to
procure an assistant to relieve her of the enormous pressure of work,
she says:—
“I need not point out that, however agreeable the post might be to my
so-called ‘assistant,’ to me the addition would be a trouble—loss of
time and other inconveniences beyond telling. It would be more trouble
to write to him than to attend myself, and as a referee he would be
almost useless. My reference work is to the leading men of the
world—those who are known, literally, as the authorities above all
others on the special points; thus I am in no way derogating from the
respect I bear to Professor Harker’s[38] knowledge, but who that knew
anything would have cared for his opinion on _Icerya purchasi_ (scale
insect of orange trees)? Dr.Signoret’s opinion carried all before it.
Again, no one’s opinion stands like that of Mr. G. B. Buckton on
Aphides, and he communicates with me whenever I ask.
“On that most important agricultural matter, _Tylenchus devastatrix_,
there is no one in England fit to form an opinion worth comparison with
Drs. de Man and J. Ritzema Bos, by whom I am favoured, through being
allowed any amount of communication. These, and men like these,
pre-eminent each in his own line, are the referees that I personally am
honoured by being allowed to ask aid from; and in my own humble way
sometimes I can reciprocate, but ‘an assistant’ would do me no good in
any of these matters. And with regard to agricultural and applied
bearings I do not want a _dictum_, but year by year by my own
correspondence with agriculturists to work out on the fields the parts
of the cases as they occur, and to give the points to the public in my
reports. I am responsible for the entomological work of the R.A.S.E.,
and unless it goes through my hands I do not know what may be going on,
and no one would know to whom to write, or, in fact, anything definite
about the matter, if there were an assistant. I have my own circle of
helpers, my own paid special referee, by whom I reach specialists out of
my circle, and my lady amanuensis in the house, besides my good sister’s
invaluable aid—always promptly and ably given. So long as I can I hope
to keep my work in my own hands, and if it were not for the great masses
sometimes sent me, which come because I have been (up to the present
time) the only Official Entomologist here, the work would not have been
so distressing. Professor Harker is, I believe, excellently qualified to
hold a good and high entomological post, but not even Professor Riley or
Professor Westwood would work a post without referees. Some day, I hope,
he may be high in office; then he will, as I do now, have his organised
corresponding staff.”
* * * * *
“As a meteorological observer, while living at Isleworth my work
consisted in taking notes on about eighteen different subjects once a
day, beginning at 9 a.m., Greenwich time precisely. These included
taking the readings of the maximum and minimum temperatures, and also
those other thermometrical conditions, as of dry and wet bulb, solar,
earth, and ground thermometers, &c.; likewise of rainfall in the past
four-and-twenty hours, of the state of weather at the time; the nature
of the clouds, with the amount and direction of them, and likewise the
direction and estimated speed of wind. The time occupied out of doors in
the observations was about twenty minutes, to which had to be added the
barometrical reading with that of the attached thermometers, with
corrections according to tables furnished for altitude of the barometer,
and such minute errors in record of the thermometers as were shown by
tables of error furnished by comparison with the instruments at the
Royal Observatory, Kew. Altogether the work required some considerable
amount of time, and also most scrupulous attention to accuracy, not to
say some amount of personal self-denial, as whatever the weather might
be at 9 a.m. the work had to be done. Perhaps there would be a
thunderstorm, or at other times cold so great that my fingers almost
froze to the instruments, as on one occasion, when the thermometer
registered nearly down to zero.”
* * * * *
[Illustration:
PLATE XX.
MISS ORMEROD AT HER METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATION STATION,
NEAR ISLEWORTH.
]
Professor Westwood belonged to the good old academic type of scholar who
made the responses in church in Latin. He was, till his death, Miss
Ormerod’s mentor from her initiation into Entomology, and she regarded
him as the greatest living scientific authority in the broad lines of
their common subject during the whole period of her advisory work. They
“got on famously,” and as she said, he “took the privilege,” which she
highly appreciated, “of knocking her work about,” as the subjoined
letter, written at an early stage of her career as an authoress,
charmingly shows.
UNIVERSITY MUSEUM, OXFORD,
_January 10, 1884_.
MY DEAR MISS ORMEROD,—I congratulate you on the publication of
your “Guide to Methods of Insect Life”—the nicest little
Introduction to Entomology with which I am acquainted. You have
been very fortunate in obtaining such a good series of woodcuts,
many of which were new to me. Allow me to suggest one or two
improvements after a hurried glance over the contents. It would
have been well to have indicated more precisely the size of some
of the objects figured; for instance, the locust, p. 28, is
twice the size of the figure—whilst the earwig, on the same
page, is about one-half the length of the figure. In p. 98, the
Death’s-head moth, which is twice the size of the Eyed-hawk
moth, is represented smaller than it is in next page. In p. 118
the fly is the _Sirex juvencus_, not the commoner one _S.
gigas_. In p. 125 the Bee parasite has not the front portion of
the wings black, but as milky as the other part. In p. 73, line
8, for “glassy” read “glossy.” I know you will thank me for
these hurried suggestions, or I would not have troubled you with
them.
Thanks for your kind enquiries. I am thankful to say that after
two months’ attack of bronchitis I am nearly all right again,
but have been much confined to the house, although I have been
wanting to go to London. My kind remembrance to your sister. We
should be very glad if you could come and give us a visit for a
short time.—Yours very truly,
J. O. WESTWOOD.
The high terms of approval and appreciation of her work by Miss
Ormerod’s numerous foreign correspondents are shown in no halting manner
in the subjoined letter:—
_From Dr. J. A. Lintner, New York State Entomologist._[39]
ALBANY, N.Y.
_May 29, 1889._
MY DEAR MISS ORMEROD,—I must congratulate you upon your last
Report. It is excellent, and reflects great credit upon you. I
am very glad that your letters have been so appreciated that it
has been necessary to summon a lady private secretary to your
aid. It will be a satisfaction to you that you will now be able
to accomplish much more than before. I am led to think whether I
should not ask our next Legislature to provide for an assistant
for me.
Your kind letter of the 10th inst. was also duly received. How
strange, and how very interesting to me, that you should
discover _Cecidomyia leguminicola_ (Gnat midge), red maggot,
with you, as you have done, working at the root—only “infesting
the root,” and not, so far as known, attacking the head. If it
occurs on the blossoms, you should have been able to find it
there by the time that this reaches you, for, as I have
somewhere mentioned, the nearly-mature larva shows a disposition
to leave the clover heads very soon after they are picked. You
ask if I have observed this form in other cecids of the clover.
We have, so far as known, but one other clover cecid, and that
is your introduced _C. trifolii_ (Clover leaf midge). The
thought suggests itself to examine some of my dried
_leguminicola_ larvæ. I am glad to have found in my collection
examples preserved in alcohol of the larvæ which I had
forgotten. As I put up quite a little quantity of them, I can
spare you these, which I am sure will be acceptable to you.
Your investigation of the “warble” presence (p. 110) effect upon
the beef-eater will, I am sure, be of much importance. One of
our Western agricultural papers has commenced an investigation.
Probably your studies and publications have incited them to it.
_March 12, 1894._
In going carefully over several pages of your seventeenth
report, which came to me last week, I asked myself, “Is not this
the best report that Miss Ormerod has written?” You are pleased
to bestow praise on my reports, which from you is agreeable to
receive, but I think that I can judge of their true value, and
very glad indeed would I be if I could feel that they were up to
the standard of yours. These are far from words of flattery, but
are said because I believe that you need encouragement. Your
reports have high merit and value, beyond similar writings of
any of your English contemporaries—yes, far beyond.—As ever,
sincerely yours,
J. A. LINTNER.
------------------------------------------------------------------------