10 Forty-first Report on the State Museum. 



during the forty years that he devoted to the work, had described 

 nearly the one-half of our known species of Coleoptera, viz., 4,739, 

 and given original definitions of more than 1,100 of the higher 

 groups.* Since his death in 1883, the order which he had so greatly 

 advanced, has continued to receive the untiring study of Dr. Horn, 

 and is being rapidly progressed through frequent monographic and 

 other publications of superior excellence. 



To Mr. E. T. Cresson we owe much of our present knowledge of 

 the Hymenoptera, through lists and monographs of several of the 

 principal families, and last, through a Synopsis of the Hymenoptera 

 of North America just published, giving the leading characters of 

 families and genera, with synoptic tables which will afford the 

 means for their ready recognition. One of the families of this 

 order — perhaps the most difiicult, from its many species and 

 microscopic size of most of the number — the Chcdcididce, is being 

 successfully studied by Mr. L. O. Howard, of the Entomological 

 Division of the U. S. Agricultural Department at Washington. 



Dr. S. W. Williston, of New Haven, is j)resenting from time to 

 time, monographs of families in Diptera — an order which has 

 been greatly neglected among us since the retirement of Baron 

 Osten Sacken from the Russian Legation at Washington, and his 

 removal to Germany. Fortunately for us, Baron Osten Sacken's 

 interest in American Diptera, is still maintained, as may be 

 seen in his occasional publications, and in a contribution from 

 him in this report and other services acknowledged. 



The Hemiptera still claim the devoted attention of Mr. P. R. 

 Uhler, of Baltimore, who has recently given us our first list of the 

 order, comprising the suborder of Heteroptera, to be followed 

 soon, it is promised, by that of the Homoptera. Mr. E. P. Van 

 Duzee, of the Grosvenor Library at Buft'alo, is also v/orking 

 earnestly and successfully upon these insects ■ — by far too gener- 

 ally regarded as unattractive. 



Mr. S. H. Scudder's studies of the Orthoptera are being sus- 

 pended, for a brief time only it is hoped, during the preparation 

 and printing of his long-promised and anxiously awaited " Butter- 

 flies of New England." 



Dr. H. A. Hagen, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 

 Cambridge, Mass., still continues to be the highest authority in the 

 Neuroptera, and a most diligent collector and custodian of all that 



*Scudder, in Trans. Amei: Ent. Soc, iv, 1884, p. xviii. 



