288 ANNUAL REPORT. 



ENTOMOLOGIST'S REPORT. 



BY R. J. MENDENHALL. 



3L'. President and Gentlemen of the Horticulturcd Society: 



While highly appreciating the honor yon have conferred upon 

 me by naming me your entomologist, I feel it my duty to the 

 society and to myself to tender — with the few accompanying 

 notes on insects — my resignation of the position. I do this with 

 reluctance, for if I had leisure and strength for the work, al- 

 though not considered a meddlesome man, nothing would give 

 me greater pleasure than to spend my days ''peeking and pry- 

 ing into the ways and manners" of our six-legged inhabitants, 

 and to wage a war — allowable even for a Quaker — against the 

 flying and crawling armies that come up every year to take pos- 

 session of the products of our toil and care. I should delight 

 to report to you annually of all these things, to warn you when 

 a new enemy was approaching our borders and to suggest the 

 best methods of defense against those already in ambush among 

 us; but poor health and a pressure of other business make the 

 necessary observations and experiments impossible for me. 



About a year ago (February, 1884), while in pursuit of health 

 and recreation in Mexico, I kept my eyes open for the tropical 

 insects of which we read such wonderful accounts, and was rather 

 surprised at their scarcity. It was not the season for the full 

 flutter of insect life, but, considering the high temperature and 

 the luxuriance of vegetation, it seemed strange that so very few 

 species should be on the wing. 



In Vera Cruz I took a Pajyilio, resembling our P. asterias, ex- 

 cept that the under wings, instead of being ornamented with 

 blue and yellow, were almost entirely of a deep red color, mak- 

 ing it a very characteristic and beautiful species. I also col- 

 lected near the city of Mexico a lot of cocoons from a tree called 

 by the natives the Wild Olive, which had been almost stripped 

 of its leaves by the caterpillars. The cocoons were about the 

 size and shape of those of our Attacus cecropia. On my return 

 home I left them with an entomological friend in Kirkwood, Mo. 

 When the moths developed I was informed that they were the 

 rare and beautiful Attacus cinctus, Tepper, a semi-tropical spe- 

 cies which had been first discovered and described less than a 



