114 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



engaged in working up material or studying habits or investi 

 gating questions in biology, etc., enough has been said to show 

 somewhat the vast amount of interest which has been taken in 

 the subject and the vast amount of work done. 



WHAT HAS BEEN, AND WHAT REMAINS TO BE, ACCOMPLISHED. 



What has been accomplished by all of this industry in the 

 actual knowledge of the characters, habits, life-histories, etc., of 

 insects has not been estimated, nor is it my purpose to attempt 

 an analysis of the work of all these years, nor to discuss special 

 fields of investigation. I wish, however, to draw attention to 

 the phase of this subject covered by the description of species 

 and genera, which, since the time of Linne, has commonly been 

 the preliminary step. 



This brings me to the consideration of the probable number of 

 true species of living insects, both as to those which have been 

 described in the literature referred to and those which remain 

 yet undiscovered or undescribed. It would be interesting, if 

 time allowed, to estimate the number of insects which have been 

 studied biologically, or the amount of work which has been 

 done, as a means of understanding the anatomy of insects, and 

 similarly for all the other fields of work in entomology, but I 

 shall have to limit myself to the single consideration mentioned. 



Estimates of the Number of Species, Described and Unde 

 scribed. 



That insects are very abundant is so self-evident that it proba 

 bly never occurred to the early writers that it would be possible 

 to estimate the actual number of distinct forms, or, at any rate, 

 we have no such estimate until w r e come down to the time of 

 John Ray. In his work, published in London about 1690, en 

 titled "The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Crea 

 tion," Ray makes various estimates of the probable number of 

 plants and animals, and estimates the number of species of in 

 sects for the whole world at 20,000. In this connection it may 

 be of interest to note that he places the number of beasts, in 

 cluding serpents, at 150, and adds that, according to his belief, 



