336 Fiftieth Report ox the State Museum 



A PLEA FOR ENTOMOLOGICAL STUDY. 



[Read before the Agassiz Association of the State Normal College, 

 Albany, May i8, 1S94.] 



The Association which I have the honor and privilege of addressings 

 I have the right to beheve, from its connection with an institution which, 

 in the annals of education, has won an enviable reputation for the care- 

 ful, sjstematic and thorough training it aims to give to all its pupils — is 

 not only desirous of promoting to the extent of its ability investigations 

 in various departments of Natural History, but that it is also able to do 

 excellent work and render good service toward this desired end. 



I therefore esteem it a privilege to appear before you to-day, and ask 

 your earnest co-operation in that department of study in which I am 

 specially interested, and to which so large a portion of my life has been 

 devoted. I appreciate, to some degree at least, the almost infinite extent 

 and variety of the Museum of Nature. On every hand and in every 

 direction, objects of interest invite our observation and study. Exclud- 

 ing what lies beyond the sphere upon which we dwell — there are the 

 rocks to which we owe our basis for study, and their contained fossils, 

 teUing of the forms that peopled this globe eons of ages ago; the vegetable 

 world instinct v/ith life and beauty and wonderful processes of growth 

 and development, and crowned with the dignity of being the agency 

 through which alone, directly or indirectly, existence is possible for each 

 and every mammal, bird, reptile, fish, insect, myriapod, crustacean, worm, 

 mollusc, protozoan — of all the myriad living forms that people our 

 globe. 



In each of the several classes of the mineral, vegetable and animal 

 kingdoms, there is abundant work for the earnest student. There are 

 collections to be made; elements, form and structure to be studied; 

 habits to be observed ; preparations for study and for preservation ; com- 

 parisons to be instituted, forms new to science to be detected and illus- 

 trated; descriptions to be drawn and published, and name and syste- 

 matic place to be given to each and every one. 



Why, then, should I make a special plea for the study of the Insect 

 world ? I would not presume to do so, unless I felt that I could give 

 you sufficient reasons for making the claim; of these, I offer, 



I. The Mental Discipline that the Study Affords, 

 This should especially commend it to the young student, where the 

 intellectual faculties are to be developed and strengthened, and the mind 



