28 



Weevil under the same name Briichus fahw, and wrote liim under date 

 February 4, 1872, as follows : 



I have been expecting a fullilment of your promise to write to me. I am espe- 

 cially anxious to make the proper corrections as to the nomenclature of Bruchus 

 faha, in my forthcoming report ; but can not well do so until I receive from you the 

 paper in which you originally described it under that name or a copy of it. Can 

 you not send it? 



This, however, was toward the end of the working career of the cel- 

 ebrated New York State Entomologist, and we received no reply. 



Eighteen years later Mr. Scudder bought Fitch's manuscript notes 

 from Dr. A. E. Foote, of Philadelphia, and gave them to the Boston 

 Society of Natural History. Mr. Samuel Henshaw, the Assistant Cura- 

 tor of the Society, began arranging them somewhat after the manner of 

 the Harris manuscript, and among the note-books found our letter just 

 quoted. He found, moreover, notes by Fitch bearing upon the point, 

 and was kind enough to copy them and send them to us (October 7, 

 1890) as the first reference he had seen to Bruchus fabce Fitch. We 

 give the transcript from Fitch's notes : 



In August, 1860, 1 received from W. R. Staples, secretary of the Rhode Island 

 Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry, a small parcel of beans infested 

 by insects, the result of my examination of which I communicated to him in the fol- 

 lowing letter, which was published in the Transactions of the Society for that year, 

 page 62, this volume having been issued in February, 1861. 



He stated in the accompanying communication that the stored beans in the city of ' 

 Providence were quite generally preyed upon by this insect. I subsequently learned 

 it was common in and around the city of New York and other jilaces along the sea- 

 board, and from complaints made by x^risoners in the late civil Avar of the wormy 

 beans furnished them for food, and which were so loathsome to them, I infer this 

 insect to be common through the Southern States. Mr. Riley having received spec- 

 imens from Massachusetts ticketed as being the Bruchus fahce of Fab., and iinding 

 no such name in the works of Fab., described it as anew species under this name 

 in his Third Report, page 52 [sic] : 



The confusion regarding the existence of a Bruchus fahw Fab. is fur- 

 ther explained in Dr. Fitch's notes as follows, the '^ Boston entomolo- 

 gist" being probably Mr. F. G. Sanborn referred to above : 



Specimens were sent from Rhode Island in 1862 to the Boston Entomologist, prob- , 

 ably ticketed ^' Bruchus fahce Fh." The abbreviation was no doubt misread ^'Fb,", 

 and thus this has become common in the collections as a Fabrician species. Mr. 

 Riley, finding Fabricius had described no species under this name, gives it as a new 

 species in his Third Report, page 55. What is here presented will clear this matter 

 of the misapprehensions which have been so widely prevalent. 



Fitch's conclusion in regard to the matter is undoubtedly correct. 

 The misapprehension was a most natural one, but fortunately the con- 

 fusion arising therefrom was not very great. Mr. Henshaw also for- 

 warded to us a proof slip (also found among Fitch's notes) of Fitch's 

 letter to the secretary of the Rhode Island Society for the Encourage- 

 ment of Domestic Industry, giving his description of the Bean Weevil 

 under the name of Bruchus fahce. 



