OF WASHINGTON. 217 



species making, and that is the utilization of nature's laws for 

 the benefit of mankind. By this I mean systematic work the 

 bringing of order out of chaos, the discovery of reliable struc 

 tural characters which may be depended upon for the founding of 

 families, genera, and species, and their arrangement in such 

 manner that the student the world over can readily recognize 

 them ; also the search after and the discovery of the laws or prin 

 ciples underlying and influencing this mighty host of insect life ^ 

 the discovery of their habits and life-histories, the morphological 

 changes undergone in their struggle for existence, by change of 

 food, environment, or climate their migrations, their geograph 

 ical distribution, whence and how it came about, and the laws 

 governing their increase and decrease. 



All of these things are of the greatest importance, looked at 

 from any standpoint philosophically, biologically, or economi 

 cally and any life is well spent that is devoted to the discovery 

 of these laws, and the unravelling of the lives and habits of the 

 millions of these minute organic beings that teem in field and 

 forest. 



The address was discussed by Messrs. Marlatt, Schwarz, Riley, 

 Howard, and Gill. 



Mr. Schwarz congratulated Mr. Ashmead upon the results of 

 what had evidently been a very great labor. He discussed briefly 

 and comparatively a few of the characters mentioned by Mr. 

 Ashmead, and spoke of their significance with the Coleoptera. 

 He stated that with the latter order the hind wings have not been 

 used to any great extent, and that only family characters have 

 been derived from them. 



Dr. Riley complimented the address highly, but called atten 

 tion to the fact that the great majority of the characters pointed 

 out by Mr. Ashmead had been used before by European system- 

 atists. He agreed as to the value of a great majority of the char 

 acters described, although he was not inclined to give much 

 weight to the variations in the shape of the spiracles and the 

 dentation of the mandibles. The abdominal characters, as illus 

 trated by the figures of Eurytoma, Decatoma, and Isosoma had 

 always been used, and he had carefully drawn them for the 



