38 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



libraries of the country. The text is simply descriptive of the plates, 

 although it contains certain bibliographical references. 



The plates just mentioned were done as part of a scheme that must 

 have originated in his mind at a comparatively early date, which was 

 to illustrate the principal insects of North America and to publish 

 these illustrations. We have said that his life at Fishkill was unpro- 

 ductive, but toward the latter part of that portion of his life he was 

 <lrawing insects and experimenting with dit^erent methods of repro- 

 ducing these drawings. He finally decided to etch them on copper 

 plates, but before leaving Fishkill he had drawn several plates on 

 stone and 'had submitted prints to Doctor Harris. Harris liked them, 

 and corresponded with Glover with the idea that he might get him to 

 illustrate books that he was preparing or was intending to prepare. 

 After coming to Washington, he continued the preparation of his 

 copper plates. During the period when he was not engaged ])y the 

 Federal Government (apparently from 1859 '-"^til April, 1863) and 

 was connected with the Maryland Agricultural College, he worked 

 industriously on these plates ; and after his return to Washington he 

 contiimed this work, doing it entirely in unofficial time — that is to 

 say, before nine o'clock in the morning and after 4;hree in the after- 

 noon. In fact, we may say that his main entomological effort was 

 devoted to his illustrations. He printed some of them upon a hand 

 l^ress and distributed them to different institutions. Many years after- 

 ward and just before his death, the original plates were bought by 

 the United States government for $7,500, and are now in the posses- 

 sion of the Smithsonian Institution. 



During his journeyings. especially throughout the south where 

 he traveled more or less during 12 years, and in a trip he took to the 

 I nited Slates of Colombia to bring in a new stock of seed sugar 

 cane for the Louisiana ])lanters, and again a trip that he took to the 

 Paris F.xposition in 1865, ^"^^ gained a very great fund of informa- 

 tion about the insects injuring crops, and his reports, printed in the 

 annual Bureau of Agriculture reports, contain very many statements 

 of importance. 



Before coming to Washington, 1 had seen, in the library of Cornell 

 University, a copy of Glover's " Manuscript Notes from My Journal 

 (Diptera) '' and had, a high idea of his comi)etence as an entomolo- 

 gist ; but when I came to Washington, I found that he had made no 

 collections of any value (although there was an exhibit collection 

 |)repared by F. G. Sanborn and which had been shown at the i'hila- 

 delphia Centennial Exposition two years before) and had appar- 

 ently left no ])ermanent records except in his etchings. So my very 



