Ill 



tious. Some of our most enthusiastic students work out several such, 

 life histories, describing not only the sei^arate stages, but the several 

 parasites that work to destroy the insects. I regard this work as very 

 valuable. It is excellent discipline for the mind and observation, gives 

 accurate information of the most interesting kind, and arouses enthusi- 

 asm for the study as nothing else can. It is such work as this that will 

 tell for the future of entomological research, that will make entomolo- 

 gists that will honor alike the fields of pure and applied entomology. 



But such study ought not and will not stop here. Post graduates 

 will avail themselves of the opportunities which such laboratories offer. 

 Last winter, during our long vacation — ours is an agricultural college, 

 and our vacations must needs occur in winter, when farm operations 

 are largely at a stand-still — I had ten special students of entomology 

 in my laboratory, one from South Dakota, one from Indiana, one from 

 Ohio, one from Japan, one from Wisconsin, and the others from our 

 own State. Nearly all were college graduates. Six special students, 

 all graduates from colleges, have spent the year in my laboratory in 

 special entomological study as post-graduate students. It seems to 

 me that such are the young men that are going to develop the entomol- 

 ogy of our country. They are the young men that can and will do 

 grand work in our colleges and experimental stations. 



These young men each take some special family or genus of insects, 

 to which they give the major part of their time and study. Thej' col- 

 lect in all orders and give special attention to biological work, tracing 

 the life history of insects, identifying the specimens they capture as far 

 as possible, and try to become familiar with entomological literature, so 

 far as they are able. These students are mutually helpful to each 

 other, as the laboratory may be said to be a sort of perpetual natural 

 history, or, more accurately, entomological society. Thus these stu- 

 dents become familiar with the general laboratory work; indeed they 

 each become a factor in some degree of carrying that work forward. 



Here I will close by explaining briefly our method of laboratory 

 work, which differs in some degree from the admirable plan which 

 Professor Forbes explained at the Washington meeting of Economic 

 Entomologists last November. 



Our labels give in compact space locality, date, accession, and species 

 number. The accession number agrees with a number — serial number — 

 in our accession catalogue for the special year. Thus Ac. 400 shows 

 that the insect or insects bearing that label were the four hundredth 

 collected during that season. The Sp. number is given as the insect 

 is determined and is the number of the insect in the catalogue which 

 we use. Thus Sp. 25 is Cicindela purpurea^ as that beetle is numbered 

 25 in Henshaw's catalogue of Coleoptera. In case the catalogue is not 

 numbered, as is the case with Cresson's list of Hymenoptera, then we 

 number it. We have a column in our accession catalogue for date, 

 collector, person who named specimen, and also for remarks. This last 



