^\\^^f^i^lnsi,t^^ 



^UN 18 1916 ' 



BULLETIN ^ ^^ M"^^^^ 



OF THE 



BROOKLYN ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Vol. XI June, 1916 No. 3 



ENTOMOLOGY AND LITERATURE 



By Annie Trumbull Slosson, N. Y. City. 



I am not going to write of entomological literature; we know 

 all about that — sometimes more than we wish perhaps. But I 

 want to speak of these two subjects as quite separate things, the 

 study of insects and belles lettres. I am led to do this by certain 

 happenings, some of them seeming to show how far apart these 

 two are, some proving that they are closely akin. In the first 

 place I, myself, have been surprised again and again by coming 

 across the name as author, on title page of book, or at head of 

 magazine essay, of someone I had known previously only as an 

 entomologist. In the boulders of the far west dwells a man who 

 knows more about hymenoptera than do the bees and wasps them- 

 selves. Beside his entomological papers, he has written charming 

 literary essays with not a sting or waspish allusion therein, but a 

 store of honey will reward the reader. I read, some years ago, a 

 clever detective novel, full of crime and mystery. Not till I had 

 finished the volume, solved the problem, and found out who " did 

 it," had I turned to the title page for the name of the author. 

 Fancy my amaze when I saw that our authority on the Plusia 

 group had deserted for the nonce his silver-lined, gold-touched 

 favorites and, as a little Vermont boy I once met used to say, 

 "done a book." He wrote others too, books with not, if I re- 

 member rightly, a lepidopterous allusion, a noctuidic touch, a 

 hint of moth from Panchrysia to Syngrapha. 



And we have another insect student, an expert and authority in 

 Coleoptera who turns out books with not a beetle in them. They 

 do not treat of elytra, gauzy wings, femora and tarsi as means 



49 



