Report of the Curator. 13 



It is perhaps unnecessarj^ to refer to the great importance of the 

 study of insects. Wherever earnest attention has been given to 

 this department of natural history, so abundant liave been the 

 practical benefits resulting therefrom, that no difficulty has been 

 experienced in establishing its claim to popular favor, or of 

 securing tlie requisite means for its proper investigation. In 

 several of the museums of continental Europe, tliere are special 

 departments of Entomology, often engaging the entire services 

 of a corps of eminent professors, as in the Jardin des Plantes 

 de Parls^ where six professors, aided by several assistants, are 

 constantly employed. 



In our own country a decided impetus has been given to the 

 study witiiin the last few years ; as evidence of this, reference 

 may be made to the establishment of the American Entomolo- 

 gical Society of Philadelphia, in 1859, now numbering a large 

 membership, and issuing a quarterly publication of a high order 

 of scientific value ; to the appointment of State Entomologists 

 in several States of the Union, and of an Entomologist in the 

 Department of xlgriculture at Washington ; the publication of 

 periodicals exclusively devoted to this branch ; the preparation 

 of text books upon the subject, adapted to the wants of our 

 higher schools and colleges ; the catalogues and treatises on the 

 several orders of insects, now in process of publication by the 

 Smithsonian Institution ; the announcement by the trustees of 

 the Cornell University of their intention of establishing a pro- 

 fessorship of Economic Entomology at an early day ; and to the 

 number of private collections of insects now being made through- 

 out the country. It is probable that in no one department of 

 natural history has so much progress been made in the last ten 

 5'ears as in that of entomology. 



Beyond the investigations of Dr. Fitch of our injurious 

 insects, our own State has contributed but little to this depart- 

 ment of knowledge. At the present time, for the best popular 

 treatise on the insects of New York, we have to turn to Harris' 

 New England Insects, a third edition of which, finely illus- 

 trated, has recently been issued by authority of the State of 

 Massachusetts. As supplementary to this work, the curator of 

 the Boston Society of Natural History is now preparing for pub- 

 lication a volume on the butterflies of New England, in which 

 are to be given illustrations and descriptions, so far as known, 

 of the several stages of transformation of each species. Not 

 entkely confined to New England, it reaches even to our unoc- 

 cupied territory, and gathers freely of our neglected fauna to 



