— 104 — 



specimens received and the species so named is liable to infect any num- 

 ber of others in the same way. I find the same blunders in collection 

 upon collection and often traceable back to one source, where a careless 

 collector mixed things. 



A little care on the part of recipients would save much of this. 



To one phase of the "collecting mania" no objection can be made 

 — on the contrary it is deserving of all encouragement — it is when it takes 

 the form of exhaustive research in a definite locality, turning up every- 

 thing discoverable; or when it runs in the accumulation of all possible 

 material in a limited group. I wish I could impress upon the collectors 

 the desirability of careful field work. The best material, and the most 

 valuable should be collected by yourself. It obtains value from the 

 number, the date and the locality, from the variations, individual and 

 local, which it indicates. 



In a well covered locality like Washington for instance new species 

 and rarities even in Coleoptera are turning up every year. This season 

 even so prominent a genus as Lachnosterna furnished a new species not 

 known when Dr. Horn wrote, and the species is the largest that occurs 

 there. 



A knowledge of what we have, will perhaps serve as a guide to those 

 interested, and suggest lines in which collections might be. accumulated. 



I shall make no pretence to completeness in the enumeration, for I 

 am personally unacquainted with any of the Western collections, while 

 most of the Eastern collections containing good material are known tome 

 personally or by report. 



The center of population is rapidly moving westward, and ap- 

 proaches the Mississippi ; but the scientific life of the nation still enters 

 in the great cities along the Atlantic coast. The good collections west 

 of the Mississippi might almost be told off on the fingers of one hand, 

 while all the really valuable collections in that vast region west of the 

 AUeghanies can be counted on the fingers of both hands. 



Several good nuclei exist however and will be more particularly re- 

 ferred to hereafter. 



In my enumeration of collections I will first enumerate all the private 

 collections, and afterward those of Public Institutions. They deserve se- 

 parate treatment, because while individual collections are often of the 

 largest value, they are always less accessible, and are sure to be either 

 broken up, or absorbed into some public Institution. 



The various orders are very unequally studied, and collections are 

 rare or numerous accordingly. So far as I am aware, there is not a single 

 individual collection in which there is any pretence of an equal attention 

 to all orders. The day of general collectors, equallj' at home in ail di- 



