6 
WORK IN THE UNITED STATES 
The first publication of the Smithsonian Institution on the subject of ento¬ 
mology was Prof. Louis Agassiz’s article: “On the Classification of Insects from 
Embry ological Data” ( Smiths . Contributions to Knoivledge, Vol. II, 1851, 28 
pages). The second publication of the same class was Dr. F. E. Mclsheimer’s 
“Catalogue of the Coleoptera of the United States,” revised by S. S. Haldeman 
and J. L. Leconte. (Smiths. Instit. 1853.) 
Twenty years later, and almost simultaneously with the installa¬ 
tion of the two above-mentioned typical collections of Diptera in 
the Museum in Cambridge, Mass., my entomological work in the 
United States was concluded by the publication of a second , this 
time critical Catalogue, likewise published by the Smithsonian 
Institution, representing the state of North American dipterology 
at that time, and showing the progress achieved (see my “ List,” 
61, 1878). This second Catalogue has the advantage of being 
represented by the two type-collections deposited in the Museum 
of Cambridge, Mass. 
Eighty-four years ago, Wiedemann, in his Zoologisches Magazin, 1817, Preface, 
p. 3, said: “It was an excellent idea of the highly respected Count Hoff- 
mannsegg to found a normal museum of natural history, in which, as much 
as possible, every species, properly authenticated by the severest test of criticism, 
should be deposited as original type, and made accessible to any worker for the 
comparison or identification of species, doubtful or supposed to be new.” (I have 
referred to this passage before, in my Catalogue, edit. 2, 1878, Preface, p. viii.) 
The Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Mass., and the National 
Museum in Washington, D. C., have, at present, fully realized this idea of 
Hoffmannsegg. 
In consequence of my arrangement with Loew, as I have said 
above, my principal efforts after 1856 consisted in procuring him 
materials to describe, and in translating and editing his manu¬ 
scripts. It required some abnegation on my part to impose upon 
myself this laborious (and comparatively subordinate) part of a 
middle-man, occupied as I otherwise was with my official and social 
duties. 1 Ever since the beginning of my entomological career I 
have felt a decided preference for observations on the living sub¬ 
ject, for questions connected with classification, and for the study of 
entomological literature. And I always had a marked repugnance 
1 About my social duties I shall merely state that, in Washington, they were 
necessarily connected with my diplomatic position, and that in New York my visiting- 
list contained over one hundred houses where I had been invited to dine. 
