40 



habitat, and falling into the hands of an entomologist, send 

 him into ecstacies of delight, and make him the envy of his 

 fellows, all on account of his having captured a poor, outcast 

 insect tramp. If the captor happen to possess more zeal than 

 discretion, as some do, and the aforesaid tramp happens to have 

 lost a few spines or bristles, or, owing to its having led a 

 half starved life, it has become in the remotest deo-ree 

 different from what a specimen, sent to Europe a century 

 ago, is said to be, it will probably become the type of a new 

 species, if indeed not a new genus. The authorities of the 

 Ohio State University, probably unintentionally, have seem- 

 ingly provided a resort on the campus for tramp Dragon 

 Flies, and our fellow member. Dr. Kellicott, has surprised 

 himself and all the rest of us, by the number of forms, new 

 to the locality, that he has recently found about the springs, 

 and small artilicial lake. I may add, what seems to me to 

 be another piece of good fortune on the pint of the doctor, 

 in escaping the mania for making new genera and species 

 from a desert of material. Now, what is transpiring at pres- 

 ent has been going on for years with constantly increasing 

 rapidity, and will continue to go on in the future. Forms 

 will, one after another, disappear and the only record we 

 shall have of iheir ever having occurred will be found in our 

 museums and literature. Indeed many have already, prob- 

 ably, thus disappeaied, and we are left without even a single 

 specimen or a word of information to show of their ever 

 having existed. 



Of what, then, will the insect fauna of the future consist ? 

 [ I J Of such species as shall have been able to adapt them- 

 selves to a changed environment, brought about by the ad- 

 vance of civilization; | 2J of such native species, from more 

 or less distant localities, that find in the changed conditions 

 an environment suited to their requirements; [3 J of species 

 from foreign countries that have been introduced into this 

 country, and diffused themselves over it, becoming more or 



