HISTORY OF HIS WORK ON ENTOMOLOGY. 



Mr. Glover comineuced his immense work on insects, known as " Illus- 

 trations of North American Entomology," in 1859. Portions of the 

 work, that is, special plates of the orange and cotton insects, were en- 

 graved a year or two prior to that date ; in fact, it may be said that he 

 made two or three beginnings prior to the commencement of his ulti- 

 mate scheme. A very early idea was a set of pocket plates represent- 

 ing the common injurious species. Quite a number of these were en- 

 graved by him, the plates, or a part of them at least, having been de- 

 l^osited in the National Museum with those of his later work. These 

 little plates measuie about 2J inches by 4, the figures chiefly relating 

 to the commonest forms of beetles and the smaller moths, with a few of 

 their larva", and a few insects in other orders. The plant affected 

 usually appears in the center of the plate, greatly reduced of course, 

 the insects in some cases being placed upon it. The work is well done, 

 some of the figures being very soft. From a study of his early plates I 

 place them among the first that he did after coming to Washington and 

 while in the employ of the Patent Oflice, probably 1855. It is interest- 

 ing to note that on all of Mr. Glover's early plates, made in any consecu- 

 tive number, whether upon stoneor copper, the ideaof showing plant and 

 insects together appears, and the same idea was carried into the first 

 plates of his final work, though soon abandoned.* 



His second beginning was the outgrowth of the scheme for a grand 

 work upon economic entomology on octavo plates which should com- 

 prise the principal plants of American agriculture, with the insects 

 figured upon them. A motive for such work appears in the set of ex-- 

 quisite water-color drawings of flowers and insects, paiuted by Mr. Glover 

 when a young man, and to which allusion has previously been made. 

 Here are shown the plant," flower, and leaf, and the various stages of 

 some species of the insect known to feed upon it. In a letter w^ritten 

 to Mr. Clapham in 1856, where he alludes to a scheme for an agricul- 

 tural museum, he says : 



Another idea is to go on with my work on insects — to have large engravings of our 

 stabile agricultural productions, such as cotton, corn, wheat, potatoes, and so forth. 

 On the wheat root place the cut-worm, chrysalis, and moth ; on the ear place the 

 wheat midge, etc., in short, to place every insect that destroys wheat upon the part 

 injured, natural size and magnified, the plates to be issued by the Government, and 

 distributed to every leading society, to be placed in their agricultural rooms. By 



* I have nearly the full series of his early i>lates, given me by their author from 

 time to time, the collection forming an interesting study. 



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