TIic Bcginiiiiios of . [iiurican Scii inc. 429 



Thus sliall tlif yuars proce-fd till .urowiii^ lime 

 Unfold the treasures of each different clime ; 

 Till one vast brotherhood mankind unite 

 In equal l)onds of knowledge and of right ; 

 Thus the proud column, to the smiling skies 

 In simple majesty sublime shall rise, 

 O'er ignorance foiled, their triumph loud proclaim, 

 And bear inscribed, immortal, Darwin's name. 



XII. 



During the three decades which made up the post-revolutionary period 

 there were several 1)eginnings which may not well be referred to in 

 comiection with individuals or localities. 



The first book upon American insects was published in 1797, a sump- 

 tuously illustrated work, in two volumes, with 104 colored plates, entitled 

 The Natural History of the rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia. This 

 was compiled by James E. Smith from the notes and drawings of John 

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

 lector and artist, who had been for several years a resident of Georgia, 

 gathering insects for sale in Europe. Mr. Scudder characterizes him as 

 the most prominent student of the life histories of insects we have ever 

 had.' 



There had, however, been creditable work previously done in what our 

 entomologists are pleased to call the l^iological side of the science. As 

 early as 1768, Colonel Eandon Carter, of Sabine Hall, Virginia, prepared 

 an elaborate paper, Observations concerning the Fly Weevil that Destroys 

 the Wheat, which was printed by the American Philosophical Society,^ 

 accompanied by an extended report by The connnittee of husbandry. In 

 the same year Moses Bartram presented his Observations on the Native 

 Silkworms of North America.^ 



Organized effort in economic entomology appears to date from the year 

 1792, when the American Philosophical Society appointed a committe to 

 collect materials for a natural history of the Hessian fly, at that time mak- 

 ing frightful ravages in the wheat field, and so nuich dreaded in Great 

 Britain that the import of wheat from the United States was forbidden by 

 law. The Philosophical Societ>-'s connnittee was composed of Thomas 

 Jefferson, at that time Secretary of State in President Washington's cabi- 

 net, Benjamin Smith Barton, James Hutchinson, and Caspar Wistar. In 

 their report, which was accompanied hy large drawings, the histor}- of the 

 little marauder was given in considerable detail. 



The publication of Wilson's American Ornithology, beginning in 1808, 



'There is a whole series of quarto or folio volumes in the British Museum done by 

 him, and a few volumes are extant in this country. Besides, all the biological 

 material in Smith-Abbot's Insects of Georgia is his.— Letter of S. H. Scudder. 



2 Transactions of the American riiilosophical Society, I, 1789, p. 274. 



3 Idem., 1789, p. 294. 



