December, 1913 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 111 



Columbia, S. C, June 9, 1841. 

 Dr. W. T. Harris: 



Dear Sir: Your letter of Feb. 9 has arrived at my hands. I got it 

 yesterday by private conveyance. If I had it in due course of mail in 

 February, it would have put me in a fever, and caused me to travel post- 

 haste to Cambridge — but, Gods! w^hat tribulation! You doubtless are 

 doomed to become a second Hercules, to clean the thousand stables 

 ( — Say's insects) of Augeas ( — the Philadelphia Society) from filth. It 

 is rather late now in the season, and I fear, I shall not have time sufficient 

 to travel this summer 1,000 miles North, and then 1,000 miles South 

 again, but I may give you counsel, that may answer even better than my 

 personal presence. It is at least well worth to be looked at and taken 

 into consideration, for it is fraught with balm, and proof for vexations 

 got up at Philadelphia, if you should not have done with them yet. "Put 

 Say's collection in as many boxes as you got with them; don't trouble 

 yourself with cleansing the bugs, don't vex yourself with fixing them on 

 pins in rank and file, don't spend a moment time to determine the 

 species, and don't write to the Society in other words than the following: 

 . . . .hereby returned that most valuable collection of the late Mr. T. Say, 

 in as fine an order as these priceless x-emains of that most indefatigable 

 and most disorderly naturalist's collection of big and small bugs deserve." 

 This your letter will then be read on one of the next meetings of the 

 resident members, and will be handed round from man to man till all have 

 seen it. Then the foreman will ask: Gentlemen, will you now please to 

 have the boxes opened and put to your inspection ? and the answer will be 

 "Never mind, Mr. Foreman, another time will do!" which means: have 

 Say's collection of insects put off the table, which means: let them be 

 d d forever. To be sure, nobody at Philadelphia has an idea of look- 

 ing at those insects, and nobody of course will ever appreciate the labor 

 of your hands bestowed upon them. But if, in good earnest, you should 

 put (or have put) those insects in the very best order, do you believe that 

 any Philadelphian will thank you for your trouble? Do you believe that 

 the Philadelphians can find any interest in the collection of the late Mr. 

 Say? Do you believe that those insects will escape the ravages of the 

 vermin, when boxed up at Philadelphia ? Never mind the Philadelphians. 

 They have more to do than look at insects and insect-fragments, they 

 have to make shinplaster etc., which is far more to their liking and 

 capacity. Never mind the Philadelphians. I have little doubt, that, if 

 you would offer them a trifie of money for Say's collection, you would 

 have it, and get many thanks besides. Try! At any rate, you seem to 

 take the business entirely too serious, and you spend your time in ex- 

 change for vexation and anger, and what profit has your family from it? 

 Never mind the Philadelphians. 



After I left Cambridge in November 1839 I arrived by way of New 

 York at the respectable city of Baltimore, finely situated and full of bank- 

 ing vermin, poverty, debts (public and private) and young whig associa- 



