iro ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, 



Letters from Thomas Say to John F. Melsheimer, 

 1 816- 1825.— I, 11/ 



Philad* April 121*^ 18 16 

 Dear Sir 



I had the pleasure on my arrival here to receive the box of 



Insects you sent me in the most perfect order, not an individual 



of the brilliant assemblage was defaced, nor an antenna or 



other extremity in any respect mutilated, this was the obvious 



result of the very careful manner in which they were put np & 



the attention payed to them on the passage by your friend. I 



am sorry I was not here at that time to receive him — But with 



respect to these Insects there has been a mistake between us, 



they are exactly the same species that your Father sent to me 



long since both sexes of which I now have in my cabinet (with 



the exception of a few) in perfect preservation & having the 



numbers of your catalogue^ annexed to them — I remember 



^ In presenting the first of these letters to the readers of Entomologi- 

 cal News, the transcriber feels that they will be a source of interest to 

 all concerned with Entomology, especially American students, by whom 

 Thomas Say is held as the father of that study in this country. A 

 rather full account of his life will be found in Volume VI of this journal. 

 Rev. John F. Melsheimer was the son of the Rev. Fred. Val Melsheimer, • 

 and there is no record of his having contributed to the literature of insects. 

 The author of the Catalogue of the Coleoptera of the Utiited States, 1853, 

 Friedrich Ernst Melsheimer, M.D. , was another member of this truly 

 entomological family, and, I think, represented the third generation in 

 this country, the elder having come to America from Ehrenberg am 

 Neckar, Germany, prior, probably, to the year 1800. They all resided at 

 Hanover, York County, Pennsylvania. 



The present transcripts and those that may follow are exact copies of 

 the originals as far as punctuation, spelling, capitalization and abbrevia- 

 tion are concerned ; so it may be understood that apparent errors are not 

 due to faulty proof-reading, as the proofs have all been compared with 

 the original manuscripts, which are contained in the library of The 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. — William J. Fox. 



'' Refers to A j catalogue \ of \ insects \ of \ Pennsylvania. \ By Fred. 

 Val. Melsheimer, | Minister of the Gospel. | Part first. | Hanover, York 

 County : | Printed for the author, by W. D. Lepper. | 1806. As the in- 

 sects spoken of in the present letters are referred to by number corres- 

 ponding to those in the work just quoted, their identity is an easy matter 

 to those having access to the book, which, however, is e.xceedingly rare. 



