16 FIRST ANifUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the year 1841. Successive editions of this admirable work have been 

 subsequently published. Of these, the last, issued in 1862, with addi- 

 tions and copious illustrations, finds place in most of the principal 

 libraries both here and in Europe, and its pages may ever be consulted 

 with pleasure and with profit. It still remains the first volume which 

 the entomologist recommends to those who desire to learn of the rela- 

 tions which we bear to the insect world. A writer gives it this high 

 praise : " It has saved millions to our country, and has been received 

 with enthusiasm in all the countries of Europe. It is an imperish- 

 able honor to Massachusetts."* 



The writings of my jiredecessor, Dr. Asa Fitch, especially those 

 contained in his series of Reports on the Noxious, Beneficial and other 

 Insects of the State of Neiu York, commencing in the year 1855 and 

 terminating in 1872, have been of such eminent service in the promo- 

 tion of economic entomology, that I have felt justified in devoting several 

 pages of the Appendix (A. ) to a notice of the circumstances attend- 

 ing his call to the duties of the office of Entomologist — the in- 

 structions under which his work was conducted — the time, place and 

 manner of publication ot the several reports (fourteen in number), 

 together with some remarks upon his labors made after his decease, 

 to the State Agricultural Society with which he was so long connected.* 



To Mr. B. D. Walsh, State Entomologist of Illinois at the time 

 of his lamented death through a railroad casualty, are we indebted for 

 valuable progress in both general and applied entomology. His State 

 Report and the'large number of valuable papers contributed by him to 

 the Practical Entomologist and the American Entomologist (as editor 

 of the former and associate-editor of the latter), to the Proceedings of 

 the Entomological Society of Philadeljihia, and to other serials, show 

 clearly his prolific pen, his untiring zeal, and the unusual ability with 

 which he was gifted. His removal from us at a time when he had 

 scarcely more than entered upon the work to which he was devoted is 

 regarded as a loss to science deeply to be deplored. 



The publications and official labors of Prof. C. V". Riley — for nine 

 years the State Entomologist of Missouri, for several subsequent years 

 Chief of the United States Entomological Commission, and no^ the 

 Entomologist of the IT. S. Department of Agriculture — have contrib- 

 uted more largely than those of any other person to the extension of 

 our knowledge in applied entomology and its general diffusion. The 

 results of his studies, as given in the nine finely-illustrated Missouri 

 Reports, the Reports of the Entomological Commission, the volumes 

 of the American Entomologist, and numorons contributions to various 

 ^Fourth Annual Ee^ort of the Michigan State Pomological Society, 1875, p. 178. 



