70 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



and ridicule, greater than any other man has endured, never kindled 

 a spark of hatred in his breast. Wrapped in the mantle of his phi- 

 losophy he received no wounds, but lived with and loved mankind. 

 Let us not gird science to our loins as the warrior buckles on his 

 sword. Let us raise science aloft as the olive branch of peace and 

 the emblem of hope. 



DARWIN'S WORK IN ENTOMOLOGY. 

 By Charles V. Riley. 



Charles Robert Darwin was one of the original members of the 

 London Entomological Society, of whom only six are yet living. 

 He always took the keenest interest in the science of entomology, 

 and drew largely from insects for illustrations in support of the 

 theory with which his name will forever be associated. Indeed, I 

 have the authority of my late associate editor of the American En- 

 tomologist, Benjamin Dann Walsh, who was a classmate of Darwin's, 

 at Cambridge, that the latter' s love of natural history was chiefly 

 manifested, while there, in a fine collection of insects; so that, as 

 has been the case with so many noted naturalists, Darwin probably 

 acquired from the study of insects that love of nature, which, first 

 forever afterward, inspired him in his endeavors to win her secrets 

 andi nterpret aright her ways ! 



Though he has left no descriptive or systematic work of an ento- 

 mological character, yet his writings abound in important facts and 

 observations anent insects, and no branch of natural science has 

 more fully felt the beneficial impulse and stimulus of his labors than 

 entomology. Indeed, the varying conditions of life in the same 

 individual or species; the remarkable metamorphoses; the rapid 

 development; the phenomena of dimorphism and heteromorphism; 

 of phytophagic and sexual variation; the ready adaptation to 

 changed conditions, and consequent rapid modification ; the great 

 prolificacy and immense number of individuals; the three distinct- 



