PEEFAOE 



'To the Members of the Missouri State Board of Agriculture : 



Gentlemen: — I herewith submit, for publication, my Second An- 

 nual Report on the Noxious, Beneficial and other Insects of the State 

 of Missouri. 



For my First Report, I prepared two lithographic plates, a cer- 

 tain number of which were colored. Such plates, when well exe- 

 cuted, are an adornment to any work, but they are expensive; and 

 upon conferring with different members of the Board, it was thought 

 best to furnish two such plates for one-half the edition, rather than 

 one plate for the whole edition. The plan has not worked well, how- 

 ever, since many of those persons most interested in the Report, and 

 for whom it is more especially designed, failed to get copies which 

 had plates. 



For this Second Report, therefore, I have confined the illustra- 

 tions to wood. Most of these wood-cuts are executed in the best 

 style of the art, but they cannot possibly show to good advantage 

 on such paper as was used in last year's Report; and the pains taken 

 in the preparation of these culs, and in hiring the very best engrav- 

 ers the country affords, seems too much like waste of time and means, 

 when their effect is so spoilt by poor ink and poorer paper. If it is 

 in the power of the Board, by proper action, to secure a better qual- 

 ity of paper for this Report, I sincerely hope that such action will be 

 taken; for a clear impression of an insect cut is often absolutely 

 necessary, to enable the general reader to recognize, in the field, the 

 living form of the particular species which it represents. 



The cause of Economic Entomology lost one of its greatest 

 champions, and the farmers and fruit-growers of the West, and espe- 

 cially of our sister State, Illinois, suffered an irreparable loss, in the 

 sudden death, on November 18th, 1869, of Mr. Benj. D. Walsh, of 

 Rock Island. At the time of his death, he was State Entomologist of 

 Illinois, and my Associate in the Editorship of the American Ento- 

 mologist, published at St Louis; and I hardly need say that this sad 

 and unexpected fate of my friend has very much increased my own 

 labors. When I add to this the fact that Mr. Walsh was prostrated 

 for over three months last spring and summer, and that Mr. Wilcox, 

 our State Printer, was ready for this Report at an earlier day than I had 



