Whole vol. applied entomology — howard ii 



Priority in this list apparently belongs to Colonel Landon Carter 

 of Virginia, who published in the Transactions of the American 

 Philosophical Society for 1771 a rather long paper entitled "Obser- 

 vations concerning the Fly Weevil, that Destroys the Wheat, with 

 Some Useful Discoveries and Conclusions regarding the Propagation 

 and Progress of that Pernicious Insect, and the Methods to be Used 

 to Prevent the Destruction of the Grain by It." 



The second important contributor to this kind of literature was 

 Prof. William D. Peck, of Harvard College, whose first article was 

 "The Description and History of the Canker Worm" (Massachu- 

 setts Magazine, 1795). He described the species as Phalaena vcruata 

 (the spring cankerAvorm). He published later papers on the natu- 

 ral history of the slugworm (Selandria cerasi), 1799; on the canker- 

 worm again, 18 16; on the insects which destroy the young branches 

 of the pear tree and the leading shoot of the Weymouth pine (Scoly- 

 tus pyri and S. strohi), 1817 ; and the insect which destroys the locust 

 tree {Cossiis robiniae and Clytus robiniac) , 1818. His last published" 

 paper was upon insects which aflfect the oaks and cherries, 1819. In 

 this article he described the oak pruner and the plum curculio. 



Continuing chronologically, R. Green wrote about the horse bot 

 as early as 1806, and published other papers on the rose-chafer and 

 on cutworms. 



The famous entomologist, Thomas Say, wrote about the Hessian 

 fly as early as 1816. He published three short papers on this insect; 

 another in 1823 about the peach-tree borer, and in 1828 a letter writ- 

 ten by him to C. W. Capers contained the first scientific description 

 of the adult of the famous cotton caterpillar. 



In 1823 was published the first economic paper by the man who is 

 held to have been the father of economic entomology in America — 

 T. W. Harris. It was entitled " Upon the Natural History of the 

 Salt Marsh Caterpillar." Harris continued to write until i860, and 

 his contributions were so numerous and so important that they will 

 be considered in a separate section to follow this running account. 



E. C. Herrick, Librarian of Yale College, published his first eco- 

 nomic note in the American Journal of Science and Arts for 1840, 

 describing an egg-parasite of the spring cankerworm. Later in the 

 same journal, 1841, he published an account of the Hessian fly and its 

 parasites, considering this insect in both its European range and its 

 American range. A longer article by the same writer on the subject 

 of the Hessian fly was published in the Report of the Commissioner 

 of Patents for 1844. 



