OF WASHINGTON. 113 



hundred additional names in recent literature, so that from this 

 source alone we have a record of probably 1,000 persons now 

 living and writing on the subject of insects. 



The minutely divided subject-indexes, with consequent fre 

 quent duplication of names of Taschenberg's Bibliotheca 

 Zoologica, and similarly of the Zoologischer Anzeiger, Zoolog- 

 ischer Jahresbericht or Bertkau's Entomologischer Bericht, 

 make these sources of information useless for the purpose of esti 

 mating the number of living writers. Many of the writers on 

 economic subjects fail to be listed in any of these registers. The 

 number of such writers for America alone is indicated by Hen- 

 shaw's lists, already referred to, which enumerate 560 authors, 

 most of whom are still living. 



It seems to me, therefore, reasonable to say that there are from 

 twelve to fifteen hundred people now living whose writings on 

 insects are of such a character as to be noticed in such standard 

 annual works of record as the Zoologischer Anzeiger, Zoological 

 Record, etc., with probably an equal number who fail of record 

 or write more or less on purely local and economic subjects. 

 This does not include the writers on bees to any extent. 



These figures leave out of account the very large number of 

 collectors of insects who rarely, if ever, write on the subject. 

 Perhaps the best available source of estimating this class of 

 workers in entomology is Friedlander's " Zoologisches Adress- 

 buch or International Zoological Directory," Berlin, 1895. 

 From an estimate based on the index of this work, which in 

 cludes both writers and collectors, it appears that some 4,800 

 persons are writing on various topics connected with the general 

 subject of insects or are interested in collections. There are 

 necessarily many duplications in this index, and, on the other 

 hand, a great many omissions, but from this and the other sources 

 of information named it is safe to assume that between three and 

 four thousand persons living at the present time are sufficiently 

 interested in entomology to get into the records, either as writers 

 or collectors. 



However incomplete the foregoing estimates may be, both as 

 to amount of published matter and the number of persons now 

 interested in the science of entomology, and more or less actively 



