€ht (Cnimi^tnu ^ntauuilit^tst 



Vol. LI I. LONDON, AICIST, 1920. No. (i 



POPLLAR AND PRACTICAL LNTOMOL()(.^. 

 The C'ontp:nt.s OF OiK Kntumolugrai. joi knai.s Dikinc. LM'i. 



liV IIARUY H. WICISS, 

 New jersey State l>rpt. ol .XgricuUure, New Brunswick, N.|. 



Entomological journals arc mostly what contributing authors make them, 

 and the following, which is a brief summary of the DID contents of eight journals 

 devoted entirely to entomology, should, if nothing else, indicate in a general 

 wa\-. the trend of entomological thought and activity. Such a siunmar>-, how- 

 e\er. will not give an adequate idea of all entomological activities nor ol the 

 amount of published material devoted to each branch of entomology, in \ iew 

 of the fact that no consideration has been given to the publications of experi- 

 ment stations, departments of agriculture, colleges and unixersitics nor to journals 

 de^•oted only p.irtK" to entomology. 



The title of this paper clearK' indicates its scope, and nothing more nor 

 less should be assumed. In the tables which follow it is not intended that one 

 journal should be compared with another. They have been treated separately 

 onl\- for the sake of con\enience, and their contents have been summarized b>' 

 titles and not by the cpiantities of printed matter devoted to each subject. 

 These journals range from four to twelve issues per year, are of different sizes, 

 and employ types of various kinds, consequently a true compafison should 

 include all of these factors. All are valuable, all ser\e a useful purpose, and all 

 should be supported b>' entomologists. 



With the exception of PsN'che and the journal ol the New ^'ork Lnto' 

 mological Society, the complete 1919 xoluine of each has been summarized- 

 In the case of the exceptions, the last 1919 numbers of which lia\e not appeared 

 at this writing, the last issiie of 191 H was included in order to make a complete 

 \"oltnne. 



Table I indicates the number of titles on each subject or group of subjects 

 in each magazine. In a few instances, single papers covered more than one 

 subject, and in such cases the titles were placed according to the amount of 

 material on each subject. As for example, if a paper contained 75 per cent, 

 of taxonomic material and 25 per cent, of any other subject, it was placed in 

 the group devoted to classification. However, most of the titles and subject 

 matter fell readily into the classification as given in the tables Table I further 

 shows that papers on classification, including descriptions of new species and 

 papers dealing with the various phases of systematic entomology, outnumber 

 all others. Following this numerical order we have the biological papers, 

 such as those dealing with the life-histories, habits and early stages of insects, 

 and then the economic ones. Only one journal is devoted to economic ento- 

 mology, and there are hundreds of economic papery published by agricultural 



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