30 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



character of the articles furnished, are such as to insure its entire 

 success. 



12. In accordance with the plan mentioned in the last Eeport of direct- 

 ing attention to departments of knowledge needing special stimulus, the 

 Institution has made arrangements for the preparation of a series of 

 works on the different orders of insects found in North America, with 

 a view of identifying the species and of systematizing the study of their 

 relations and habits. This is a subject not only of much scientific 

 interest, but also of great practical importance in regard to its con- 

 nexion with agriculture. When it is considered how much loss is 

 annually caused to this country by the ravages of the Hessian fly, the 

 army and cotton worms, the curculio, the grasshopper, and numerous 

 other species of insects, it must be evident that anything that may 

 tend in however slight a degree to throw light upon the means of pre- 

 venting such ravages is of great commercial importance. But 

 before we can make use of the experience of other countries on this 

 subject, it will be necessary to identify the insects, since, in regard to 

 them as well as other objects of natural history, the same name is 

 often popularly applied to widely different species. 



The greatest deficiency in American natural history is to be found 

 in the department of entomology, there being no original treatise in 

 reference to this country applicable to the wants of the present day. 

 The Institution has therefore made arrangements with eminent ento- 

 mologists for the preparation of the following series of reports on the 

 different orders, in the form of systematiclists,of all the North American 

 species hitherto described, and an account of the different families and 

 genera, and, whenever practicable, of the species of each order : 



Coleoptera, (Beetles, &c.,) by Dr. John L. Le Conte, Philadelphia. 



Neuroptera, (Dragon flics, &c.,) by Dr. Hagen, Konigsberg. 



Hymenoptera, (Wasps, bees, &c.,) by H. De Saussure, Geneva. 



Diptera, (Flies, mosquitoes, &c.,) by Baron Ostensacken, of the 

 Russian legation at Washington. 



Lepidoptera, (Butterflies, moths, &c.,) by Dr. J. Gr. Morris, Balti- 

 more, and by Dr. B. Clemens, Easton, Pa. 



Hemiptera, (Chinches, roaches, &c.,) by P. R. Uhler, Baltimore. 



Catalogues of the Coleoptera and Diptera have been already pub- 

 lished, while the descriptions of these orders by Dr. Le Conte and 

 Baron Ostensacken, and of the Neuroptera, by Dr. Hagen, are in an ad- 



