72 PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 23, NO. 4, APRIL, 1921 



far inferior in value to good line or stipple work. The recent 

 appearance of a few good, colored illustrations in Federal 

 entomological publications is an encouraging symptom which we 

 hope will be followed by others in increasing numbers. 



In surveying the work of the pioneers in American entomo- 

 logical illustrative art, one is apt to be impressed most forci- 

 bly by the excellent results achieved in spite of the optical 

 difficulties and crude methods of reproduction under which 

 most of the early draughtsmen must have worked. In these 

 days of the perfected binocular microscope with its prisms for 

 erecting the image of the model, its improved lighting facilities, 

 its ample working distance, and of the intervention of photo- 

 graphic means of reproducing our drawings at any desired scale, 

 it is difficult indeed for us to realize the almost disheartening 

 obstacles that had to be overcome by these early draughtsmen. 

 Many, if not most of the early worker were compelled to draw 

 with the aid of simple magnifying glasses of comparatively low 

 power, which gave a distorted image except in the center of the 

 field. Even the best of microscopes in those days were compara- 

 tively crude affairs affording but a very short working distance 

 and small field, and were designed almost entirely for slide work 

 with transmitted light, and therefore of limited use in the 

 preparation of drawings where direct illumination is necessary 

 and it is ciesirable to have the entire model in the field of view at 

 one time. Add to these difficulties the necessity of producing 

 the drawing on the exact scale on which it was to be reproduced, 

 that it must be drawn on or afterward transferred to wood, 

 stone, or metal, and etched or engraved by a craftsman who 

 possibly knew nothing of insects and had little sympathy for 

 any one who did, and it seems wonderful that even a recognizable 

 likeness of any insect could be produced by such methods. The 

 fact that, in the face of such serious difficulties, illustrations of 

 a very high character were produced, speaks volumes in praise 

 of the patience, determination and skill of these early draughts- 

 men whose individual work will be mentioned later on. 



Here and there among these men there occurred one whose 

 physical, or rather whose optical deformity seems to have fitted 

 him in a remarkable way for his chosen work. I refer to the 

 intensely myopic vision of such men as Herman Loew and 

 Townend Glover, whose otherwise defective vision permitted 

 them to study and even to draw small insects with little or no 

 artificial visual aid. Baron Osten Sacken has given us a very 

 good account of Loew's powers in this way and Mr. Charles R. 

 Dodge has mentioned Glover's abnormal vision as being of 

 distinct advantage in his work. It would be of interest to 

 learn just how greatly such visual defects may have influenced 

 these men in the direction of entomological research. 



Little, very little, is recorded in entomological literature 



