During the entire scientific career of the author spanning over 48 years,
among all the scientific books he studied, more specifically the books
related to his major subject “Entomology” the book that impressed
him the most is “Principles of Insect Morphology” by R. E. Snodgrass
published in 1935. Till date, even after nearly 80 years no one could
attempt to revise the book nor has any entomologist had really ventured
into that. The main reason is after spending nearly 50 years as curator
in “USDA and Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural
History, Smithsonian Institution” and observing probably some millions
of specimens related to “Entomology” and allied classes of arthropods,
Dr Snodgrass made an earnest attempt to knit an evolutionary history of
the whole class of “Insecta” within and in relation to other arthropods.
Although it is impossible even to imitate such great people it is always
ideal to keep such personalities in mind in doing a similar activity.
During the entire scientific career of the author, he had opportunity to
visit Philippines and Bangladesh among the rice growing countries. Hence
the information that was analyzed and futuristic solutions given in the book
regarding all other rice growing countries barring his native country of
India are based merely on literature coupled with a little bit of imagination
of the practical situations that are likely to exist based on very limited first-
hand information abroad. Hence readers will understand this limitation and
sympathise with author for any ignorant overtures made on any aspect of
the whole subject.
It is well known to scientists that there are two ways of presenting scientific
information. Scientific writing meant for experts in that particular subject
and science writing meant for general public who have interest in the
subject. The author made an attempt to script in a way it is 60 per cent
scientific writing and the rest a science writing to facilitate a broad
readership particularly other subject people working on rice crop.
