342 



and the State has suffered from them. Much has been done in the way 

 of county regulations and State laws governing inspection, quarantin- 

 ing, and disinfection, and in many instances these regulations have 

 accomplished a great deal of good. We anticipated this scare about 

 Florida scales and placed ourselves upon record some time ago as to 

 the necessity of the establishment of a quarantine in Florida against 

 infested plants from California and vice versa. 



THE INSECT COLLECTION OF A LARGE MUSEUM.* 



By C. V. Riley. 



THE TYPE OR SYSTEMATIC COLLECTION. 



The ideal cabinet collection of a National Museum should represent, 

 as completely as possible, the insect fauna of the country, properly 

 classified and determined. It can, necessarily, have little interest for 

 the public at large and should be consecrated to the use of the special- 

 ist and to the advancement of the science of entomology. For this 

 purpose it should be most carefully guarded and conserved in the 

 best-made drawers and cases and secured alike from light and the too 

 constant handling of the mere curious. It should constitute a study 

 collection to which workers are drawn for unpublished facts and for 

 comparisons and determinations. It should be so well conserved and 

 provided for as to induce describers of new species to add to it their 

 types or authentic duplicates thereof. It will be many years ere 

 such an ideal collection can be gotten together, and none now living 

 may witness it, but the material now on hand forms a good foundation 

 for it. 



THE EXHIBIT COLLECTION. 



The exhibit collection should be something entirely independent and 

 apart from the other, and, on account of the rapid deterioration of insect 

 specimens constantly on exhibition and necessarily much exposed to 

 light, should consist, as far as possible, of duplicates only, or of such 

 commoner species as can be easily replaced. Intended for the instruc- 

 tion and edification of the lay visitor to the Museum, it should illustrate 

 in the boldest possible way the salient characters of the class, the 

 larger classificatorv divisions and the structures on which they are based, 

 and the wonderful metamorphoses and economies of the commoner 

 and easily recognized species, particularly in their relations to man either 

 directly or indirectly through injury or benefit. 



*Extracted, with slight changes, from the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution for 1886, Part II, Report of the National Museum, pp. 182-186, Washington, 

 1890. 



