PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 39 



[b. about 1760], living in England in 1840, an accomplished 

 collector and artist, who had been for several years a resident 

 of Georgia, gathering insects for sale in Europe. Mr. vScudder 

 characterizes him as " the most prominent student of the life his- 

 tories of insects we have ever had."* 



There had, however, been creditable work previously done in 

 what our entomologists are pleased to call the biological side of 

 the science. As early as 176S, Col. Landon Carter, of " Sabine 

 Hall,'' Virginia, prepared an elaborate paper '• On the Habits of 

 the Fly-Weevil that destroys the Wheat." which was printed by 

 the American Philosophical Society,! accompanied by an ex- 

 tended report by " The Committee of Husbandry." In the same 

 year Moses Bartram presented his •• Observations on the native 

 Silk-Worms of North America. "| 



Organized effort in economic entomology appears to date from 

 the year 1792, when the American Philosophical Society ap- 

 pointed a committee to collect materials for a natural history of 

 the Hessian Fly, at that time making frightful ravages in the 

 wheat-fields, and so much dreaded in Great Britain that the 

 import of wheat from the United States was forbidden by law. 

 The Philosophical Society's committee was composed of Thomas 

 Jefl^erson, at that time Secretary of State in President Washing- 

 ton's cabinet, Benjamin Smith Barton, James Hutchinson, and 

 Caspar Wistar. In their report, which was accompanied by 

 large drawings, the history of the little marauder was given in 

 considerable detail. 



The publication of Wilson's American Ornithology, begin- 

 ning in 180S, was an event of great importance. It was in 1804 



♦There is a whole series of quarto or folio volumes in the British Mu- 

 seum done bv him, and a few volumes are extant in this country. Be- 

 sides, all the biological material in Smith-Abbot's Insects of Georgia is 

 his." — Letter of S. H. Scudder. 



t Transactions of the American Philosophical Soc, i, 274. 



X Ibid., p. 294. 



