THTI: 



Vol. Ill -slk^i^k VOL.1 NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1880. 



No, 9, 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 



THE HUB PUBLISHING CO. of n. y. 



328 Pearl St., New Vork. 

 TERMS Two dollars per annum, in advance. 



EDITORS : 



CHAS. V. RILEY, Editor Washington, D. C. 



A. S. FULLER, Assistant Editor, Ridgewood, N. J. 



ANNUAL ADDRESS 



Before the Entomological Club of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, by the 

 President, Mr. S. H. SCUDDER, Of Cambridge. 



It is the good fortune of your President 

 on this occasion to welcome you to his na- 

 tive heath, wheie our favorite science has 

 been longer, more uninterruptedly, and, per- 

 haps, more zealously cultivated, than any- 

 where else in the New World. Here, in 

 the last century, Peck studied the Canker- 

 worm and the Slug-worm of the Cherry, 

 and, in late years, R/tync/iaeniis, Stenocorus, 

 and Cossus^aW highly destructive insects. 

 Here lived Harris, who cultivated ento- 

 mology in its broadest sense, and whose 

 classic treatise was the first important Gov- 

 ernment publication on injurious insects. 

 Here, to-day, we have two associations for 

 our work, consisting, it will be confessed, 

 of nearly the same individuals, and not 

 many of them, but meeting frequently — 

 one in Boston, the other in Cambridge. 

 Harvard acknowledges the claims of our 

 study in supporting not only an instructor 

 in entomology at its Agricultural School, 

 but a full Professor of the same in the 

 University at large. 



Harris attributed to Peck his special in- 

 terest in entomology, and his first paper, 



that on the Salt-marsh Caterpillar, appeared 

 in the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository 

 only four years after Peck's last, in the 

 same magazine, on Cherry and Oak Insects. 

 How many of us have drawn our first in- 

 spiration from Harris ? Yet probably not 

 one of our local entomologists ever saw 

 him. The general direction of Harris's 

 studies doubtless arose from the predilec- 

 tions of his instructor ; and the unprece- 

 dented growth of economic entomology in 

 this country, where it flourishes as nowhere 

 else, must be credited primarily to the 

 influence of Harris's work. With every 

 temptation which the wealth of new mate- 

 rial about him could give, or which a very 

 extensive correspondence with naturalists 

 devoting themselves almost exclusively to 

 systematic work, like Say, would naturally 

 foster, he wisely followed the bent given 

 his studies by his early training under 

 Peck, and left a better example and a more 

 generous and enduring influence. 



In our own day, the spreading territory 

 of the United States, the penetration of its 

 wilds, and the intersection of its whole area 

 by routes of travel, the wider distribution 

 and greatly increased numbers of local en- 

 tomologists, as well as the demand for our 

 natural products abroad, have set also be- 

 fore us the same temptation to study only 

 new forms and to cultivate descriptive 

 work, to the neglect of the choicer, broader 

 fields of an ever-opening science. It is 

 this danger to which I venture briefly to 

 call your attention to-day, not by way of 

 disparaging the former, but rather in the 

 hope that some of our younger members, 

 who have not yet fallen into the ruts of 

 work, may be induced to turn their atten- 



