116 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



able two millions. Professor Riley in 1892 made a careful esti 

 mate of the number of existing species of insects on the globe, 

 basing it on a careful computation of the number of species 

 already described and the percentage of new species which are 

 always turning up in collections in new or little worked territo 

 ries. He placed the number of actual species at ten millions, 

 and considered this to be a moderate figure. 



A very interesting statement compiled by Mr. Kenyon has 

 recently appeared in the American Naturalist, giving in tabular 

 form the number of described species of living animals in the 

 different classes, as known in the years 1830, 1881, and 1896. 

 This puts the number of described insects, excluding Arachnida 

 and Myriapoda, at 49,000 in 1830, 220,000 in 1881, and 230,000 

 in 1896. Mr. Ashmead, in a former presidential address before 

 this Society, estimated the number of described species of insects 

 at 250,000. The records from which the 230,000 estimate just 

 given was made are necessarily incomplete and it is probable 

 that Mr. Ashmead's figure is the more nearly correct. In the 

 statement just referred to in the American Naturalist the total 

 number of described animals in all classes was only 366,000, 

 and, as will be noted, insects with spiders and Myriapods repre 

 sent nearly 250,000 of these, leaving only a little over 100,000 

 for all other animals. 



From these figures and Prof. Riley's estimate of the number 

 of insects, it is apparent, as Mr. Kenyon suggests, that a reasona 

 ble census of the whole animal kingdom would be about 15,000,- 

 ooo living species, of which 10,000,000 would be of insects. 



It is interesting to note in this connection that Dr. Sharp has 

 recently computed that in the matter of bulk insects probably 

 outrank all other animals together, their small size being more 

 than counterbalanced by the vast number of species and enormous 

 number of individuals. 



If we take the estimate of the number of insects in the world 

 at 10,000,000 as a reasonable one, and that at the present time 

 250,000 of these have been described and are preserved in collec 

 tions and are known to entomologists, it will be seen that only i 

 insect in 40 of the existing species is known, and this fact would 

 seem to throw grave doubt on much of our classifications and 



