A LIST OF THE INSECTS OF NEW YORK 



WITH A LIST OF THE SPIDERS AND CERTAIN OTHER ALLIED 



GROUPS 



Mortimer Demarest Leonard^ 



INTRODUCTION 



New York State has for many years been a favorite collecting ground 

 for insects, and from within its boundaries an immense number of speci- 

 mens have been accumulated. For the most part, these specimens repose 

 in the extensive collections of Cornell University at Ithaca, the New 

 York State Museum at Albany, the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory in New York City, the Brooklyn Museum, and Syracuse University. 

 These institutions, however, by no means possess all of the material col- 

 lected, for a number of persons have collected and studied insects at 

 various points in the State for years and their private collections are rich 

 in numbers both of species and of individual specimens. In addition 

 there is much New York material in other States, due to exchange or re- 

 moval by workers from other parts who have collected here. This material 

 is included in the collections of museums and of specialists all over the 

 United States and Canada. 



Although New York material has either formed the basis, or been in- 

 cluded in many pages, of monographic and revisional papers as well as of 

 a number of local faunal lists, undoubtedly the bulk of it in collections is 

 still to be mentioned in literature. Some of the best and most careful 

 collecting in the State has been done by individuals who have published 

 but little if anything. 



Because of what had already been done, and as a stimulus to further 

 collecting and study, it seemed advisable to take inventory of all those 

 species definitely known to occur within the State and to record as far as 

 possible the distribution of each within this area. This in brief is the 

 scope of the present list. The date of occurrence or the seasonal range is 

 also given, as far as it can be determined. 



This "List of the Insects of New York" is the outgrowth of a 

 project initiated about twelve years ago by a committee of a number of 

 the leading entomological specialists, including representatives of the va- 

 rious institutions and societies interested. Dr. J. Chester Bradley, of Cor- 

 nell University, was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Board of Editors, 

 and a group of subeditors was selected composed of leading specialists in 

 the major groups. The task was a considerable one, but these workers at- 

 tacked it vigorously and thousands of records were transcribed to cards 

 from the literature and from determined specimens. 



1 Editor-in-Chief. 



[5] 



