12 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



and scientific accuracy of the illustrations in trie Missouri Re 

 ports no one can form a conception who knows them only 

 in their original edition.* 



I have now enumerated the sources through which separate 

 works on North American entomology have been published. 

 The works themselves do not present any distinguishing fea 

 tures : Harris' Treatise went through three editions, a fact 

 which is not often repeated in entomological literature ; and the 

 number of editions of Dr. Packard's well known Guide, has, 

 so far as I am aware, never been equalled by any other ento 

 mological work here or in Europe. I do not believe that, with 

 the possible exception of Peale's work on L/epidoptera, there 

 ever was a book written by an American entomologist which 

 had to be left unpublished for want of a channel for publication. 

 Some instances of this sort are known in the European litera 

 ture, e. g., a great and elaborate work by the great explorer of 

 Russia, Pallas, on the Insect Fauna of Russia, has not been 

 published for want of a publisher. The famous Dipterist, Dr. 

 Hermann Low, had the misfortune to be a most prolific 

 writer on an order of insects which by no means belongs 

 to the favorite ones.f For a long series of years he flooded 

 and overstocked all German entomological as well as other 

 scientific periodicals with his contributions to descriptive 

 Dipterology, besides publishing as man}^ separate volumes 

 as he could find publishers for. His Monograph of the Euro 

 pean Asilid<z, which nearly fills three entire volumes of the 

 I/innaea Entomologica, caused the financial bankruptcy of the 

 Stettin Entomological Society, for there was no sale for these 

 volumes. His MS. of the fourth volume of the European 

 Diptera, in continuation of Meigen's work ; his second 

 volume of the African Diptera ; his great work on Diptera in 

 Amber all works representing years of assiduous and consci- 



* By an accident one of the Reports of the State Entomologists, 

 viz : the Second Illinois Report, has been published as a separate 

 volume. 



t Dr. C. A. Dohrn says that Low was the owner of a steam factory of 

 fly-paper ; no one could deny the excellent quality of this fly-paper, but 

 unfortunately there was never a market for it. 



