Miscellaneous Intelligence. 159 



One great advantage of the instrument is, that it facilitates the com- 

 putation of areas in land surveying. Anything which abridges the labor, 

 of a process so frequently repeated, is of value. When the corners of a 

 field have been plotted, the differences of latitude and the meridian dis- 

 tances can be measured, in a very short time, with an accuracy far greater 

 than that ordinarily used in the field work of a survey. 



^10 pains have been spared in the mechanical construction to make the 

 instrument accurate. The methods of using it are fully detailed in an 

 accompanying manual. This manual forms of itself, in fact, almost a 

 complete treatise on land surveying. 



3. Donation of types of American Reptiles by the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution to the CivicoMuseo of Milan.— In the May number of this Journal 

 we published a note from Prof. Henry, in reply to a statement, by our 

 'rrespondent, that the Smithsonian Institution, (excepting the 



British M 



5 almost the only great establish n 

 ■ .vards the work on serpents of Prof. Jan 



, '""^'^'^ niaienais towards tbeworkon serpents ot r 



in a recent article by Prof. Jan on the Typhlopidce, in ine Arcnivio per 

 "'f^Jogia, etc., ofGenoa, vol. i. p. 196, we find the following remarks : 

 >e have received from the Smithsonian Institution original speci- 

 mens of nearly all the species (of serpents) described by Baird and Girard, 

 and other American authors, and from the Museum of Philadelphia 

 unous types of Hallowell and Cope. Nearly all the specimens sent by the 

 ^ useum of Washington are intended permanently to enrich our collec- 

 ^on, thanks to the generosity of Dr. Henry, general Secretary of the 

 ■mithsonian Institution, and worthy interpreter of an establishment 

 ounded with the single object of promulgating and diffusing scientific 

 i^nowledge, and of according to all those occupied in such pursuits, an 

 I'ftcient assistance and the most ample protection ; an establishment, of 



iq^ "''■'^ ^- ^^rricJc, died in New Haven his native place, June 11, 

 ]^% aged 51 years. Mr. Herrick's name has been identified with the 



"'tory of American science for a generation, and it was a household word 

 j'^ the readers of this Journal. Scarce a volume of which, since 1836, 

 ses^l ^" without some contributions from his pen. Mr. Herrick pos- 



'"', an encyclopedic knowledfre: his mind grasped with equal tenacity 



of ti ''^ P^^^'^g' tbat the first contributions to science published by three 

 ^ ttiose who have since been known as among our most constant and 

 ^ 'led contributors, viz : Profs. Gray and Dana, and Mr. Herrick, ap- 

 .^'^rt',! ,n the same number of our first series, viz: vol. xxxi, No. 2. Mr. 





insects. His researches 



e history, habits and parasites of the Hessian Fly, {Ceddomyia des- 

 ■ Say) are well known to entomologists. His principal published 

 on this insect, appeared in 184I,^^> but his researches were contin- 

 ' intervals, throuo^h life. His last contribution to this Journal was 

 ^seventeen-year focust, and a critical notice of the new edition of 

 s Insects injurious to vegetation.^^) But Mr. Herrick has been much 

 (i) This Journal, xH, 153. (2) [2], xxxiii, 433-434. 



