Vol. VII] EVERMANN— DIRECTOR'S REPORT FOR 1917 349 



2568 13,093 44,5% 



To these should be added the 2171 specimens saved from the fire, making 

 a total of 46,767 mounted and classified specimens. 



Department of Entomology 

 By E. P. Van Duzee, Curator 



The present report covers the activities of the department of Entomology 

 for the year 1917-1918. 



In my report for last year it vv^as stated that the most urgent duty of the 

 curator during the year would be the classification and arrangement of the 

 North American material now in the Academy collection, and this aim has 

 been constantly before me during the year now closing. It is true that 

 but a start has really been made but that little has done much to increase 

 the value and usefulness of the collection. All of the Coleoptera, or beetles, 

 have been assorted into families and a considerable portion of the Diptera 

 and Hymenoptera, the work in the latter order having been done for us 

 by Prof. J. C. Bradley of Cornell University. In the determination and 

 arrangement of the material in the various families of insects that have 

 been assembled we have been fortunate in securing the assistance of a 

 number of specialists all of whom have given their time and labor without 

 material recompense. Dr. Frank E. Biaisdell has worked up three families 

 of beetles including over 2300 specimens and has five smaller families now 

 in his hands, worlc on which is well advanced. Mr. Ralph Hopping has 

 attended to two families numbering 650 specimens; Prof. H. C. Fall of 

 Pasadena, one family of about 300 specimens, and Prof. Wickham of 

 Iowa State University, one of 70 specimens. In the Hymenoptera, Prof. 

 J. C. Bradley has worked up most of the aculeate forms, or the wasps, 

 numbering 667 specimens; Mr. Dickenson of Sacramento has studied one 

 family of the Diptera, the Syrphidae or flower flies, numbering 554 speci- 

 mens; Prof. J. M. Aldrich of Purdue University 27 specimens of kelp- 

 flies, and my brother, M. C. Van Duzee of Buffalo, the Dolichopodidse, 77 

 specimens. In the Lepidoptera Dr. R. Ottolengui of New York has 

 studied and returned to us the Plusiini, a small group of brightly colored 

 owlet moths, recorded last year as having been sent to him for study. 

 Many scattering determinations have been made in other families of in- 

 sects by myself and others which have done much to enhance the value of 



