58 



for good, I believe it to be impossible to reject Hiibner altogether, as it would necessitate 

 too much fresh naming and work. It is evident that we are practically near the solution 

 of the whole question, and that having taken out of Hiibner what we can fairly use, we 

 shall drop him and further quarrelling on the subject. The controversy has been, how- 

 ever, an interesting one, as illustrating literary vehemence. 



After Hiibner, the work of Kirby on Canadian insects in the Fauna Amer. Borealis, 



merits our attention. This author describes and figures the rare Smerinthus Cerisyi and 



Alypia MacCullochii (Fig. 29). I have not been able, however, to 



identify his Sesia ruficaudis ; the supposition that it is Hemaris 



icniformis is contradicted by the description. Other North American 



moths described by Kirby and not since positively made out are 



Deilephila intermedia and the species of Plusia, while his Arctia 



partlienice has been identified as a variety of the common Arctia 



virgo, a species which Kirby does not seem to have known as he 



.Fig. 29. does not allude to it. Kirby 's descriptions have been reprinted in 



the Canadian Entomologist, and we can now pass briefly in review 



the works written and published in America itself upon our butterflies and moths up to 



the year 1858, the first hundred years after Linnseus. 



The first author whose works have left an indelible impression upon the science of 

 entomology in America is Dr. Harris, who resided for the time in Cambridge and was 

 librarian of Harvard University. An original copy of his published writings is before 

 me, with notes in his hand, and some comments by the late Dr. Fitch, from whose library 

 the book came into my possession. The importance of Dr. Harris's work is not measured 

 only by the amount of information on North American entomology gathered by him ; 

 it is the general useful direction which his enquiries take and which is to be the model 

 of future work in America in the same field. Dr. Harris is the first of the State Ento- 

 mologists, a body of scientific men who are naturally to accomplish much practical good 

 in a country whose wealth so largely depends upon agriculture. The first part of Dr. 

 Harris's "Report on the habits of insects injurious to vegetation in Massachusetts " was 

 submitted to the Senate and House of Representatives of the State by Edward Everett, 

 on the 19th of April, 1838. Previous to this, some lists had appeared but no description 

 of species. His " Descriptive Catalogue of the North American Insects belonging to the 

 Linmean Genus Sphinx in the cabinet of Thaddeus William Harris, M.D.," appeared in 

 the pages of Silliman's Journal, No. 2, Vol. 36, in the ensuing year (1839.) There is, 

 then, no doubt that the plates of Hiibner mentioned above have priority over the descrip- 

 tions of Dr. Harris, who can very well afford to lose the few species considering the 

 greater importance of his total work, as such a course, from the conscientious regard for 

 priority displayed in his writings, would have also pleased him best. I have elsewhere 

 written at some length upon Dr. Harris's Report. It has become classical upon its sub- 

 ject, going over the whole range of our noxious insects as then known. I need refer 

 here only to that portion which treats of the Lepidoptera, or butterflies and moths. 



Under the heading of " Insects injurious to Vegetation " we might arrange nearly 

 the whole of our Lepidoptera, since the larvae almost all feed upon plants. The excep- 

 tions to this rule are the bee moths, probably imported species of Galeria which feed 

 upon wax, and two species of Phycidae, Euzephora coccidivora and E. pallida, described 

 by Prof. Comstock, and which devour plant lice instead of plants, as caterpillars. There is 

 also some evidence that the Tineid, Euclemensia bassettella, is also predaceous in its habits. 

 A good many species of moths, however, become of great economic importance from their 

 feeding upon cultivated plants, and it is these primarily that have become the subject of 

 investigation on the part of the State and general Government, and which work in the 

 United States has arrived at dimensions unknown in Europe. It is a known fact in 

 Europe that the efforts at keeping down the numbers of certain noxious species of Lepi- 

 doptera have been, in certain localities, effective. For instance, the White Tree Butter- 

 Fly, Aporia crataegi, no longer appears in such swarms as formerly, and this is attributable 

 to the systematic way in which the nests of the caterpillar have been broken up and 

 destroyed in France and Germany. On the other hand, swarms of the Cabbage Butterfly 

 and several sorts of injurious moths still recur at irregular intervals. This swarming of 



