XX MEMOIR. 



the insect-wealth of a new island at his disposal. They are 

 monarchs of all they survey. With what affluence they 

 exhibit their dozens of undescribed species ; with what auto- 

 cratic power they divide and recombine genera ! How ar- 

 dently writes Hentz to Harris, " Oh ! why must we live at 

 •such a distance from each other? What pleasures we might 

 enjoy together." Or, " Mourn no longer for the singleness 

 or solitude of your Amphicoma vulpina ! I have found an- 

 other." Yet they were richer for the loneliness, and per- 

 haps it Avas better that Massachusetts and Carolina, even in 

 scientific jurisdiction, should remain at a reasonable distance. 

 Had these students shared one entomological region, they 

 would have had less wealth to interchano-e. 



Nothing among the papers of Dr. Harris contains so much 

 of his scientific biography as a letter written by him to Dr. 

 D. H. Storer of Boston, from which I shall therefore take 

 ample extracts. 



Cambridge, Nov. 2, 1836. 

 Dear Sir: — 



Your kind note will cause you the trouble of reading a long answer, if 

 indeed you can spare tlie time to do so. My plans are by no means so 

 nearly matured as you seem to imagine, nor indeed is there any very great 

 chance of the object of my wishes being speedily accomplished. The want 

 of a manual of American Entomology struck me very forcibly fifteen years 

 ago, when I was turning some of my attention to the study of insects, and 

 this want greatly impeded my progress. There were then very few persons 

 who paid any attention to Entomology in this country ; none of them, 

 excepting Prof Peck, were then known to me; and the information which 

 I could have gathered from him was suddenly lost to me by his death. 

 Sometime afterwards I became knovra to !Mr. Say through our mutual ac- 

 quaintance, Prof Nuttall, and a correspondence was continued, at protracted 



