Eighth Report of the State Entomologist. 220 



being the first government publication on insects issued in the 

 United States. Subsequent editions have appeared of this report, 

 with additions in 1852, and again in 1862, — the latter with 

 illustrations. Of this work it may justly be said, — The Slate has 

 honored itself in its publication. Although so many years, 

 marked with wonderful progress, have elapsed since its prepara- 

 tion, it is still the first volume that L recommend to those who 

 desire to learn of insects and their habits; for it stands to-day 

 as fresh, as interesting, as valuable as when first issued from the 

 pi ess — unsurpassed, we believe, by any similar report in any 

 other department of natural history ever published. 



Your own Board has done much to encourage entomological 

 studies. I have in my possession a paper, entitled "Economic 

 Entomology, by Francis G. Sanborn, Entomologist to the Massa- 

 chusetts Board of Agriculture," without date of issue, but prob- 

 ably published about the year 1860. 



"An Essay on "Some of the Insects of Massachusetts which 

 aie Beneficial to Vegetation," by the same author, as entomologist 

 to the Board, and forming a portion of the report of your Secretary 

 for the year 1863, is a valuable contribution, treating of insects 

 in their several orders, and illustrating them in sixty figures. 



Tn the years 187J, 1872, and 1873, three valuable reports were 

 made to your Board by Dr. A. S. Packard, Jr., upon the " Injurious 

 aEd Beneficial Insects of the State of Massachusetts." So able 

 were these reports and of so great practical importance to agri- 

 cultural interests, that it is much to be regretted that provision 

 could not have been made for a continuation of the series. 



There are, doubtless, among the publications of your Board, 

 other contributions to the science, to which reference deserves 

 to be made, of which I have no present knowledge. 



In this connection it is proper that I should refer to a col- 

 lection in economic entomology that within the last few years 

 has been quietly brought together and built up at the Museum 

 of Comparative Zoology, at Cambridge, by the distinguished 

 professor of entomology, Dr. H. A. Hagen, under the fosteiing 

 care of Alexander Agassiz. It has for its object a better oppor 

 tuiii<y of acquaintance with the insect world than can be afforded 



