8 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



on insects before the year 1839, when Dr. Nathaniel Potter 

 published, in Baltimore, a small book on the Periodical 

 Cicada.* The publication of the great work on North Amer 

 ican L,epidoptera, by the older Leconte, in conjunction with 

 Boisduval, was commenced some years previously, but it was 

 printed in France. But even counting in this and Abbot's 

 work, we find that up to 1840 only seven books treating 

 on North American insects were published, and this small 

 number strikingly contrasts with the splendid series of most 

 important works produced during the same period by the en 

 tomologists of Europe. A mere enumeration of these would 

 take a long time, but I think that this unprecedented activity 

 in producing separate works has not been maintained in Eu- 

 rope in the latter half of the century, and is now largely 

 superseded by society publications. Regarding the oldest 

 North American books very little seems to be known ; I fail 

 to find in the whole literature any early notice of Melsheimer's 

 Catalogue : it seems to have been little distributed here, as 

 well as in Kurope, and is now extremely rare. Say's Amer 

 ican Entomology attracted considerable attention in Europe, 

 and there are several notices thereof in European, but none so 

 far as I can see in the contemporaneous American literature. 

 We ought to suppose that the appearance of this work was 

 hailed with joy by our few entomologists of those early 

 days, but all I can find is a short passage in one of Dr. Har 

 ris' letters, in which he briefly announced to his friend, Prof. 

 Hentz, the publication of the third volume of the American 

 Entomology, in the same dry way as we would mention to 

 each other the appearance of a number of the Canadian Ento 

 mologist or any other regular periodical. Mr. Ord, in his 

 " Memoir of Thomas Say," written in 1834, calls this work 

 11 the most beautiful publication of this kind which has ever 

 been issued from the American press," and informs us that 

 the expenses were furnished by the enthusiastic publisher, 



*Mr. T. R. Peale's contemplated "Lepidoptera Americana" has re 

 mained a fragment, and only a few pages and plates thereof were dis 

 tributed in 1833, but apparently never placed on the regular market. 



