XX11 MEMOIR. 



The difficulties met with, at length led me to think of some means of 

 making Entomology popular, and I looked to the young as the proper sub- 

 jects to begin with. With the hope that by exciting a taste among children 

 for this branch of natural history, the parents might become interested also, 

 I have rewritten my introduction in plain tind simple language, divested as 

 much as possible of all hard words, and intend to add to it brief descriptions 

 of some of our most common insects. This you may think is small business, 

 but I hope it may at least be useful and entertaining to those for whom it is 

 intended. 



Dr. Pickering of Philadelphia some months ago urged me to undertake a 

 synopsis of American insects, and said so much on this subject that I was 

 induced to take his proposition seriously into consideration. I then wrote to 

 him that if he would examine Say's insects for me, and answer such enqui- 

 ries as I might find it necessary to make respecting the species contained in 

 his cabinet, I would undertake to make " a descriptive catalogue of the in- 

 sects named in the second edition of Prof. Hitchcock's Report on the Geology, 

 etc., of Massachusetts," but I could promise nothing more ; for I was deter- 

 mined not to undertake to describe any insects but those which I had before 

 my own eyes. Hereupon Dr. Pickering obtained leave of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences to send me the whole of Say's collections, only stipulat- 

 ing that I should put them in good order, and return them in a condition to 

 be preserved after I had examined and arranged them. They arrived about 

 the middle of July; but on examination were found to be in a deplorable 

 condition, most of the pins having become loose, the labels detached, and 

 the insects themselves Avithout heads, antennae and legs, or devoured by 

 destructive larva?, and ground to powder by the perilous shakings Avhich 

 they had received in their transportation from New Harmony. This ir- 

 remediable destruction has in great measure defeated my expectation of 

 deriving benefit from examining the specimens and comparing them with 

 those in my own collection, and in that of Prof. Hentz 



Mr. Hentz's collection of insects is a most capital and valuable one ; it 

 proves on examination to be far better than I had anticipated. I am sorely 

 disappointed and mortified in not having been able to raise subscriptions 

 enough to pay for it, and for the beautiful and useful works of Olivier and 

 Voet which accompanied it. 



