208 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



lion to some of the more fruitful fields of 

 diligent research. 



We should not apply the term descriptive 

 work merely to the study of the external 

 features of insects. The great bulk of what 

 passes for comparative anatomy, physiology 

 and embryology, is purely descriptive, and 

 is only to be awarded a higher grade in a 

 scale of studies than that which deals with 

 the external properties, when it requires a 

 better training of the hand and eye to carry 

 it out, and greater patience of investigation. 

 We pass at once to a higher grade of re- 

 search when we deal with comparisons or 

 processes (which, of course, involve com- 

 parisons). All good descriptive work, in- 

 deed, is also comparative ; but at the best 

 it is so only in the narrowest sense, for only 

 intimately allied forms are compared. In 

 descriptive work we deal with simple 

 facts ; in comparative work we deal with 

 their collocation. " Facts," said Agassiz, 

 one day, " Facts are stupid things, until 

 brought in connection with some general 

 law." 



It is to this higher plane that concerns 

 itself with general laws that I would urge 

 the young student to bend his steps. The 

 way is hard ; but in this lies one of its 

 charms, for labor is its own reward. It 

 is by patient plodding that the goal is 

 reached ; every step costs and counts ; the 

 ever-broadening field of knowledge exhila- 

 rates the spirit and intensifies the ambition ; 

 there is no such thing as satiety — study of 

 this sort never palls. 



It is hardly necessary to point out that 

 so-called systematic work never reaches 

 this higher grade unless it is monographic ; 

 unless it deals in a broad way with the 

 relationship and general affinities of in- 

 sects. It is not my purpose to call atten- 

 tion here to the needs of science in this 

 department, as they are too patent to es- 

 cape observation ; but if one desires a 

 model upon which to construct such work, 

 one need not look further than the Revision 

 of the Rhynchophora by Drs. LeConte and 

 Horn. Rather than linger here, we prefer 

 to pass directly to some of the obscurer 

 fields of study. 



When we compare the number of insect 

 embryologists in America with that of their 

 European colleagues, the result is some- 

 Avhat disheartening and discreditable ; aU 

 though perhaps the comparison would be 

 not quite so disproportionate were some of 

 our students to publish their notes. But 

 take all that has been done upon both 

 sides of the water, and what a meager 

 showing it makes. Of how many families 

 of Coleoptera alone have we the embry- 

 onic history of a single species ? Of two 

 of the four families of Butterflies, the fer- 

 tile eggs of which are perfectly easy to ob- 

 tain, nothing is known. In short, one may 

 readily choose numbers of typical groups 

 whose embryonic history would be a great 

 acquisition to science. Here is a broad 

 field. From the special range of my own 

 studies let me recommend to any one eager 

 for this work to choose the eggs of our 

 common copper butterfly, which she will 

 lay to order on sorrel, and the earlier 

 stages of which can be obtained from the 

 parent at two or three different times of the 

 year; or the eggs of any of our common 

 skippers, which deposit on grass, and which 

 are equally easy to obtain, although only 

 once a year. Or, if we turn to Orthoptera, 

 the eggs of our common Oecanthus, con- 

 cealed all winter in raspberry twigs, are 

 more transparent and more easily obtained 

 than those of any other cricket ; and our 

 knowledge of the embryology of any of the 

 Gryllidae is very fragmentary, and of this 

 particular tribe, «//. Better still, perhaps, 

 would be the choice of our common walk- 

 ing-stick, as it belongs to a bizarre and 

 isolated type, now known to be of very 

 ancient ancestry, and of whose embryonic 

 history nothing has been published. I 

 have, indeed, a few incomplete notes upon 

 this insect, but they relate wholly to a late 

 period of development, and were made be- 

 fore the time of the microtome, when work 

 over such coarse-shelled eggs was very 

 difficult and unsatisfactory. The eggs may 

 be readily procured, the insect being 

 abundant in scrub-oak fields ; the mother 

 drops the eggs loosely on the ground, and 

 from imprisoned specimens I have pro- 



