MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 367 



Accepting charge of the commission thus con"^tituted, in March, 1877, 

 he traveled over most of the western country, from the Gulf to the 

 South Sascatchewan, in British America in company with the various 

 governors, or other state officials, everywhere exhorting the farmers to 

 action, and making careful observations and experiments which were af- 

 terwards incorporated in the reports of the commission. In the spring 

 of the next year. Prof. Riley was tendered the position of United States 

 Entomologist, which he accepted, and immediately reorganized the 

 Bureau, obtaining an appropriation of $11,000 for special entomological 

 investigations, the greater part of which he expended in making obser- 

 vations on the insects injurious to cotton and other southern staples. 

 Resigning that position at the end of the first year, he again assumed 

 active charge of the commission. Congress having complimented him 

 by transferring the cotton worm investigations to the commission. 



During the years 1879 ^^^ 1880, he continued in the work in which 

 he was so deeply interested, until its final transfer to the Entomological 

 division of the Department of Agriculture, July i, 188 1, when its labors 

 were merged into those of the Division, and closed a year afterward, he, 

 in the meantime, having again accepted the position of United States 

 Entomologist, which he still holds. 



Prof Riley has been a voluminous writer, and the number of articles 

 is so great that it appals mc to think of writing even the titles of them. 

 They cover the entire field of economic, and to a large extent that of 

 pure entomology, besides valuable essays on other branches of science, 

 education and agriculture. His labors as editor of the American Ento- 

 mologist, of which three volumes were published; his essays and ad- 

 dresses published in the transactions of the various horticultural so- 

 cieties; his ©facial reports as state entomologist of Missouri, member of 

 the U. S. Entomological commission, and as U. S. Entomologist; his 

 papers in the transactions of the different scientific societies, domestic 

 and foreign; his popular scientific contributions to Johnson's, Appleton's, 

 Brittanica, and the Farmers' and Planters' Encyclopedias; his technical 

 papers in the bulletins of the Hayden Survey, and more recently his 

 Bulletin of the Entomological Division, and editorial work in ''Insect 

 Life" were all done between the the years 1864 and 1889, and represent 

 a life of tireless activity. It is a quality of his writings that, whether 

 appealing to the plain farmer, or intended for the technical eye of the 

 specialist, they are marked with force, common sense and originality. 

 He seldom writes upon a subject without presenting some new idea or 

 some new fact previously unrecorded; and this originality, both of his 



