2 Annals Entomological Society of America [Vol. XIII, 



erences to the insects of the newly discovered lands. Oviedo as 

 early as 1526 alludes to the abundant and torturing insect pests 

 of the regions which he visited. At a later date -Catesby -and 

 Sir Hans Sloane attempted an account of some of the species 

 encountered in the Carolinas and the West Indies. Then came 

 t;he immortal Linnaeus and his disciple, Charles Qerck, who 

 about one hundred and sixty years ago began to lay substantial 

 foundations by naming, describing, classifying, and figuring 

 many North American insects. Some of the remnants of the 

 Linn^an Collection are still preserved at Upsala in Sweden, 

 where I had the pleasure a few years ago of examining what is 

 left of them. 



Linnaeus possessed an encyclopedic mind. His Systema 

 Naturce was a bold attempt to classify all the living organisms 

 of which he had knowledge from the greatest to the smallest. 

 No one of the sciences now comprehended under the great and 

 inclusive term entomology but recognizes his influence. All stu- 

 dents who make a study of the various orders of insects rec- 

 ognize that the Sage of Upsala was the first to blaze the way 

 into fields, which, as the years have gone by, have seemed ever 

 to expand, and to be more and more filled with wonders. 



In the last two decades of the eighteenth and in the early years 

 of the nineteenth century a number of Europeans amplified and 

 extended the labors of Linnaeus. The student of North Amer- 

 ican entomology recognizes his debt to Fabricius, whose writ- 

 ings must still be consulted by systematists. About this time 

 Cramer issued his great work upon the lepidoptera exotic to 

 Europe, the fourth and last volume appearing in 1782, being 

 supplemented by Stoll, whose work appeared from 1787-1791, 

 and who also published important works upon the hemiptera, 

 homoptera, and orthoptera, which the student of today cannot 

 neglect. Smith and Abbot's "Natural History of the Rarer 

 Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia," issued in two folio volumes 

 in 1797, is one of the monumental works of this period. It must 

 always be occasion for regret that the original drawings made by 

 Abbot of the insects belonging to other orders which he 

 depicted, the originals of which are preserved in the British 

 Museum, were not published. Abbot was a careful observer 

 and an accomplished draftsman, whose work deserved a better 

 fate than to be si'mply buried in the portfolios where they still 

 may be seen. To this period also belong the writings of Latreille, 



