PSYCHE. 



THE WORK OF A DECADE UPON FOSSIL INSECTS, 1880-1SS9. 



BY SAMUEL HUBBARD SCUDDER, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



[Annual address of the retiring president of the Cambridge Entomological Club, tojan. 1890.] 



Some years ago I published an an- 

 notated and tolerably complete list of 

 papers on fossil insects. It contained 

 nearly three times as many titles as 

 were referred to hv Hagen in his entomo- 

 logical bibliography nearly twenty years 

 previously, but, as the multiplication 

 of periodical literature had brought in 

 a train of minor papers, largely abstracts 

 and compilations, I remarked that the 

 far greater extent of my list was no 

 proof of an increased recent interest in 

 this field of research, but thought it 

 doubtful whether in the intervening 

 period there had been as much activity 

 as when the works of Heer were open- 

 ing the wealth of material at hand. 



So marked a change has now come 

 about in this respect that T venture this 

 evening to invite your attention to a 

 review of the advance that has been 

 made during the past ten vears in this 

 previously neglected field. In doing 

 this I do not by any means propose to 

 cite every paper that has been published, 

 but only to call your attention to the 

 more important or interesting, from 



whatever cause, and thus endeavor to 

 picture our progress as vividly as possi- 

 ble. Indeed, the mere list of authors 

 would be wearisome, for one could 

 make a catalogue of the writings of the 

 last ten years considerably longer than 

 the entire list given by Hagen in 1863. 

 To be precise, I can cite 94 authors 

 and about 325 papers published in 

 this decade, against 78 authors and about 

 140 papers quoted by Hagen. Or to 

 picture it in another way, about one 

 third of a complete catalogue of papers 

 on fossil insects would belong to the 

 decade just closed. Nor is the bulk of 

 this literature its only value ; it is quite 

 as remarkable for its quality, for by far 

 the most important of the discoveries 

 yet made in fossil insects are embodied 

 in the researches of the last ten years, 

 and there is no reason to suppose that 

 we have reached their conclusion. 



Note, first, the relatively great num- 

 ber of striking discoveries that have 

 been made within this period. The 

 discovery and careful study of Silurian 

 scorpions in several diflteient parts of 



