ENTOMOLOGICAL SCOIETY OF ONTARIO. 



of the agricultural experiment stations ucder the Hatch bill, in 1888, this experiment 

 station became governmental in its character, and Prof. Comstock was naturally made 

 entomologist. Since that date he, or his assistants, have published a number of very 

 important bulletins, the first one, on " A Sawfly Borer of Wheat," by Prof. Oomstock ; the 

 second on Wireworms, by Prof. Uomstock and his assistant, Mr. M. V. Slingerland, and 

 the later ones mainly by Mr. Slingerland. These are among the best and most practical 

 of the experiment station bulletins that we have. They are characterized by almost a 

 superabundance of detail and plainly by great care. The illustrations are very nearly all 

 original, and are excellent. 



The U. S. Department op Agriculture. Almost simultaneously with the appoint- 

 ment of Dr. Fitch to do entomological work for the State, of New York, came the appoint- 

 ment of an entomological expert under the General Government, On June 14, 1854, 

 Mr. Townend Glove'.' was appointed by the Commissioner of Patents to collect statistics 

 and other information on seeds, fruits and insects in the United States, under the Bureau 

 of Agriculture of the Patent Office. Mr. Glover was one of the most eccentric individuals 

 who have ever done important work on North x^merica insects. He had led a roving 

 and eventful life as a boy in Brazil, as a clerk in a draper's shop in England, as an 

 artist in Germany, as a roving traveller and naturalist in ail parts of the United States, 

 and finally as a landed proprietor with horticultural tastes on the banks of the Hudson 

 in New York. Pomological interests brought hiaa to Washington shortly before the time 

 when he received his appointment. His first report was published in the Report of the 

 Commissioner of Patents for 1854, was illustrated by six plates engraved on stone by the 

 author and comprised some consideration of the insects injutious to the cotton plant, 

 wheat, and the grapevine, and on the plum curculio, codling moth, and peach borer, 

 closing with some account of the more common species of beneficial insects. His second 

 report, in 1855, continued the consideration of the cotton insects, toj;ether with some 

 accounts of orange insects. The reports for 1856 and 1857 contained nothing from him, 

 but that for 1858 contains a ra.her full report on the insects frequenting orange trees in 

 Florida, published over the initials D. J. B., which were those of the then chief clerk of 

 the Bureau, with whom Mr. Glover had many serious disagreements, largely on the matter 

 of credit, which resulted in his resignation the following year. In 1862 the Department 

 of Agriculture was established as a separate institution, under the co'mmissionership of the 

 Hon. Isaac Newton, and in 186.3 Mr. Glover was appointed entomologist to the Depart- 

 ment. His annual reports follow consecutively from 1863 to 1877, and are storehouses 

 of interesting and important facts which are too little used by the working entomologist 

 of to-day. Their value for ready reference, however, is detracted from by a lack of 

 systematic arrangement and poor paper and press work, but many observations are to be 

 found in the pages written by Glover which have subsequently been announced by others 

 as original and important discoveries. There is, however, in Mr. Glover's reports, a lack of 

 consecutive and full treatment of any one topic.^and the subject of remedies seems seldom 

 to have received original treatment or thought with him. This is largely due to the fact 

 that his reports were matters of secondary importance to him, his main energies being 

 devoted to the building up of a museum for the Department and to the preparation of his 

 most elaborate series of illustrations of North American insects, a work upon which 

 he expended enormous labor^ and which unfortunately, up to the present time, has added 

 to his fame nothing but the good opinion of a few of his scientific contemporaries 



In 1877 Mr. Glover's health suddenly failed him. His report for that year was 

 largely prepared by his able assistant, Mr. Charles Richards Dodge, who, by the way, is 

 the author of the charmingly written account of Mr. Glover's life, published as Bulletin 

 18 of the Division of Entomology of the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Glover lived 

 for several years afterwards, but was unable to do further work. He died in Baltimore 

 in 1883, and the writer and Profs. Uhler and Riley were the only entomologists present 

 at the funeral services of this, in many respects, remarkable man. 



The year 1878 marked a new era in the governmental entomological work. Prof. 

 C. V. Riley, a comparatively young man, who had already become famous by the admir- 

 able work which he had done as entomologist of the State of Missouri, and as chief of the 



