(B.) 



ENTOMOLOGICAL ADDRESSES. 



The republication of the following papers of the Entomologist seems 

 desirable, in consideration of their having been printed without the oppor- 

 tunity of correcting, in proof, the many typographical and other errors 

 that they present ; and further, that no extra copies (of the first two) were 

 secured by the author for distribution to those whom they would fail to 

 reach in their original issue, and to whom they might be of value or of 

 interest : 



[From Proceedings of the 24111 Convocation of tlie University of tlie State of New York.] 



THE PRESENT STATE OF ENTOMOLOGICAL SCIENCE IN THE 



UNITED STATES. 



(Read before tlie Convocation at its Meeting on July 7, 1886.) 

 It would seem proper that a paper upon the present state of entomological science in 

 our country should bo prefaced by a history of its progress. But in two attempts made 

 by me to sketch this history very briefly, the sketches have grown to such a length as in 

 themselves to occupy all the time allotted for this paper. I have therefore laid them 

 aside for the present, and will only ask your indulgence for a few introductory remarks. 



Early Entomological Studies. 

 Entomology, as a science — although its foundations were laid three hundred a;id 

 fifty years B. C. by Aristotle, the father of zoology, the pupil of Plato, and preceptor of 

 Alexander the Groat — can only date in this country to a period within the memory of 

 many of those now living. True, the ravages of insect pests had previously been 

 observed by agriculturists and recorded in agricultural and scientific journals, 

 as those of the " army-worm " (then called the black worm) in 1743, of the Hessian 

 fly, in 1768, and of the chinch-bug in 1783: —scientific study and description 

 had been made by Peck, afterward a professor of natural history in Harvard 

 College, of a noted insect pest throughout New England, the canker-worm, in 1795:— 

 collections of our insects of considerable magnitude had been made by naturalists 

 from abi-oad and taken to Europe during the latter half of the eighteenth century 

 where they were described and named by Linnajus, Fabricius, Drury, and others:— a 

 work upon American insects, entitled "Natural History of the Rarer Lepidoptera of 

 Georgia," in two volumes, folio, with colored plates of insects and their early stages, 

 which has justly been styled an " ouvrage de luxe," bears date of 1797, but of the Lon- 

 don imprint, having been edited by a distinguished English botanist, and published 

 through the subscriptions largely of the English nobility:— as early as 1806 a catalogue 

 of the insects of Pennsylvania was published by Melsheimer, giving the names of 

 1,363 species, but they were merely traditional names, unaccompanied by descriptions, 

 of which only 205 can now be identified.— Yet, while we bear in grateful remembrance 

 these early entomological studies, together with others of the kind that may not now 

 be referred to, it is without disparagement of them that we find the foundation of ento- 

 mological science in the United States, in the systematic study, description and publica- 



