1896.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 23! 



BIOLOGICAL STUDIES IN ENTOMOLOGY.* 



By CARL F. BAKER, Fort Collins, Col. 



In a recent report I gave an account of a few observations on 

 the habits of some Aculeate Hymenoptera. In connection with 

 the writing of .that report I read the interesting series of articles 

 in " Psyche," by Mr. Ashmead, giving a summary of all that is 

 known regarding the habits of American Aculeata. The small- 

 ness of the list of species considered, and the meagreness of the 

 information regarding them, is, in view of the number of working- 

 entomologists in this country, simply astonishing. A dearth of 

 material cannot be urged as an excuse, for forms of this group 

 are abundant everywhere, and often not waiting for us to come 

 to them, come to us in our own dwellings to take up their abode. 



Hymenopterists are not the only specialists laggard in this 

 respect. The lepidopterists have done well, but the clipterists, 

 coleopterists, and neuropterists, have shown a most inexcusable 

 negligence in this direction. 



An inspection of some numbers of our entomological journals 

 would almost lead one to believe that the study of entomology 

 in this country had to a large extent really degenerated into a 

 study of 'dried bug shells." Classification is but a means to 

 an end, an immense ruled note-book in which the results of 

 biological investigation may be recorded, each fact in its proper 

 place in its proper relation to other facts. To be an entomolo- 

 gist it is not at all necessary to describe H " new species," or to 

 know thousands of "bug names." The great entomologist is he 

 who, by long practice, becomes able to SEE quickly and accu- 

 rately from the entomological point of view, and to record, scien- 

 tifically ', what he sees. This is what made Riley's fame, and the 

 fame of many another great entomologist. A young friend of 

 mine, who had a quite erroneous idea of entomological work, 

 suggested to me that when every last bug had been swept into a 

 net, impaled on a pin, and a name given it, that then the ento- 

 mologist would be "out of a job." I hastened to tell him then 

 that the entomologist's work would be but really begun. 



The field of biological work in entomology is one of infinite 

 breadth and grandeur. Life-histories, habits, the intricate rela- 

 tions of insects to plants, and to other insects and forms of life, 



* Twelfth bimonthly report to the Say Memorial Chapter. 



