61 



a nuisance as the Maple Spanner had been, which with the assistance of the sparrow it 

 had replaced. 



It is, therefore, evident from the foregoing digression upon injurious insects, that 

 the study of entomology has a practical side, and that this practical side has attained a 

 great development in the United States and Canada, from the fact that these are mainly 

 agricultural countries, whose wealth is in the products of their soil, as in Europe is 

 particularly the case with France. Therefore it is that Dr. Harris's Report is of such 

 importance, and that it made much more impression than the writings of Thomas Say, 

 who described so many more species and whose American Entomology preceded it in 

 point of time. Say described but very few Lepidoptera, but these few are among our 

 most interesting insects. Smerinthus geminatus, the twin-eyed hawk, is the only moth 

 named by him, if we except that in a letter, posthumously published, he described the 

 "Cotton Worm Moth" under the specific title of Xylina. With the publication of Dr. 

 Harris's report and other papers, commenced the active study of our butterflies and 

 moths in Xew England and the North. Abbot's observations had been made, compara- 

 tively speaking, in a wilderness, and were, besides, published in Europe, where, in the 

 infancy of our literature, works on North America would naturally be printed. But, in 

 1840, things were very different. An American literature was already born and well 

 born and the study of Natural History, which I have in another work shown to be the 

 strength of the Indo-Germanic race, had already eminent students with us in its several 

 branches. Louis Agassiz had come to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the enthu- 

 siasm consequent upon his lectures was soon to bear an abundant harvest of results. Dr. 

 Harris prepared a report on the insects collected by Agassiz in his memorable trip to the 

 Lake Superior region, and the book in which it found its place has now become a very 

 rare one. In his report Dr. Harris had described an Eastern species of Hepiahts under 

 the name of Argenteomaculatus, a species of which I have examined specimens collected 

 in the Katskill Mountains by Mr. Meade. During this Lake Superior trip, a species of 

 Hepialus was collected which Dr. Harris figures and identifies with the Eastern, though 

 noting the difference in color and markings. I believe this to be the first notice of a 

 distinct species which I also have received from the Lake Superior region, the wings 

 more pinkish or salmon color, the spots smaller, the whole insect larger, and which I have 

 described in the third volume of the proceedings of the Entomological Society of Phila- 

 delphia, p. 73, pi. I, fig. 6, as H. quadriguttatus. 



Not only, then, is it the matter, it is also the manner of Dr. Harris's Report, which 

 makes it still a readable book, although so much that it contains is superseded by better 

 and fuller information. His excellent English, staid, unflippant style, absence of self- 

 assertion and spirit of cultivated observation constitute the principal charms of the 

 Report and redeem it from the dryness which such books must have for the reader. His 

 memory will always make Cambridge interesting ground for the student, even when 

 ass j nations of this kind with the past are becoming laxer and a very different style is 

 employed in entomological reports. Dr. Harris was more of a general entomologist than 

 a specialist, and his work in the different suborders of insects is everywhere of the same 

 character and bears much the same value. In his philosophy he seems to have held to 

 the tradition of Kirby and Spence. In this connection it is worth while, if no more than 

 as a reminder of views once prevailing, to give his reasons for the study of insects : 

 " Surely insects, the most despised of God's creation, are not unworthy our study, since 

 they are the object of His care and subjects of a special providence." He has a kindly 

 courtesy for the opinions of others. In recording a contradictory statement by Miss 

 Morris as to the habits of the Hessian fly, he says : " If, therefore, the observations of 

 Miss Morris are found to be equally correct, they will serve to show, still more than the 

 ring history, how variable and extraordinary is the economy of this insect," etc. 

 One contrasts this involuntarily with language we sometimes see used under similar 

 circumstances. Such adjectives as " erroneous," " incorrect," " unreliable," " vicious," 

 etc., are foreign to Dr. Harris and his report is the gainer from this fact. I have passed 

 happy hours wandering beneath the Cambridge elms and conjuring up the kindly 

 figure of this entomologist of an olden time. 



The example of the State of Massachusetts was followed by New York, and Dr. Asa 



