The Bcgiiiiiiti^s o/WDicriiaii Science. 420 



Tims shall the years prcjceed till growiiij; lime 

 l'nfol<l the treasures of each difTerent cliiiu' ; 

 Till one vast brotherhood mankind unite 

 In t'cjual bonds of knowledge and of ritrht ; 

 Thus the proud column, to the smilinj^ skits 

 In simple majesty su])lime shall rise, 

 O'er ignorance foiled, their triumph loud ])roclaim, 

 And bear inscribed, immortal, Darwin's name. 



xir. 



Durin.i;- the three decades which made tip the post-revohitionai')' period 

 there were several ])e,y,iiiiiiiigs wliich ma>' not well be referred to in 

 connection with individuals or localities. 



The first book upon American insects was ]nibli.shed in 1797, a siimp- 

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

 The Natural History of the rarer Lepidopterous Insects of ( .eor^ia. This 

 was com])iled by James \\. vSmith from the notes and drawings of John 

 Abbot [b. abotit 1760], living in England in 1S40, an accompli.shed col- 

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

 gathering in.sects for .sale in Euroi)e. Mr. vScudder characterizes him as 

 the most prominent student of the life histories of insects we have e\-er 

 had. ' 



There had, however, been creditable work ])re\-iousl>- done in what our 

 entomologists are plea.sed to call the biological side of the science. As 

 early as 1768, Colonel Landon Carter, of vSabine Hall, \"irginia, })repared 

 an elaborate paper. Observations concerning the Fly Weevil that Destroys 

 the Wheat, which was ])rinted b}' the American Philo.sophical vSociety," 

 accompanied by an extended report by The connnittee of hu.sljandry. In 

 the .same year Moses Bartram presented his Ob.servations on the Native 

 vSilkworms of North America.' 



Organized effort in economic entomology appears to date from the year 

 1792, when the American Philo.so])hical Society appointed a committe to 

 collect materials for a nattn-al histor_\- of the Hessian fiy, at that time mak- 

 ing frightfid 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 Philo.sophical Society's committee was composed of Thomas 

 Jefferson, at that time vSecretary of vState in President Washington's cabi- 

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

 their report, which was accompanied b>- large drawings, the history of the 

 little marauder was given in considerable detail. 



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



'There is a whole series of quarto or folio volumes in the Briti.sh Museum done I)v 

 him, and a few volumes are extant in this country. Besides, all the 1)iological 

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



"^ Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, I, 1789, p. 27. j. 



3 Idem., J 789, p. 294. 



