est in insects, especially after the inva- sion of locusts in 1901. He and his half-brother, Harry Vane, developed a grasshopper pesticide that was the standard remedy across the prairies for the next 30 years. Called Criddle mixture, it was a concoction of copper acetoarsenite (sold as Paris green to kill rodents), salt and horse manure (or later, bran or sawdust). Over his long career, Norman Crid-


dle wrote many books and papers. The subject matter reflected his wide interest in nature and covered topics such as plants, seed dispersal, birds


The Criddles of Aweme.


and, of course, insects, especially grasshoppers. In 1913, Norman turned his atten-


tion full time to entomology, work- ing for the Dominion Department of Agriculture. His work was considered invaluable to the understanding of the interactions between plants and the many pests that bedeviled the farm community of the first half of the 20th century. Upon his death, Dominion entomologists Arthur Gibson and H.G. Crawford declared in a tribute to him that he was “the best informed naturalist in the whole


of Canada”: high praise indeed for a self-taught, unschooled scientist and artist. He died in 1933. Not the only naturalist in the


family, Norman's siblings: Talbot (1890 to 1975) was a noted horti- culturist; Stuart (1877 to 1971) was a lily breeder and well-known for his 20 articles on mammals; and Evelyn (1876 to 1972) was an expert on insects and worked as a provincial government weed inspector. His half- brother, Harry Vane (1871 to 1955), was a well-known local breeder of roses. x


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