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ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL CLUB OF THE AMERICAN 

 ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



The annual gathering of the Entomologists of North America, in connection with 

 the meeting of the A. A. A. S., took place this year at Boston, Mass., and was the most 

 important that has ever been held, both as regards the largeness of the attendance, the 

 number and value of the papers read, and also as regards the general interest taken in the 

 proceedings. So highly indeed was it esteemed that the Standing Committee of the Asso- 

 ciation formed the Club into a Sub-section of Section B., (Zoology, Botany, etc.), and will 

 publish its proceedings in the annual volume of transactions. 



The tirst session was held in the lecture-room of the Museum of the Boston Society 

 of Natural History, at two o'clock, p.m., on Tuesday, August 24th, 1880; the President, 

 S. H. Scudder, of Cambridge, Mass., in the chair. There were over sixty persons present 

 during this lirst meeting, and at least one hundred in all must have attended the various 

 sessions of the Club. Among those present were the following Entomologists of note : — 

 Dr. J. A. Lintner, Dr. John L. LeConte, Dr. John G. Morris, Prof. C. V. Riley, Dr. 

 H. A. Hagen, A. R. Grote, Prof. Packard, S. S. Haldeman, B. P. Mann, Prof. C. H. 

 Femald, Prof. A. J. Cook, Dr. C. S. Minot, Rev. H. C. McCook, E. P. Austin, E. L. 

 Graet, H. F. Bassett, J. D. Putnam, Dr. E. L. Mark, E. Burgess, Dr. Martin, J. G. 

 Henderson, Prof. Morse, Dr. Hoy, 0. S. Westcottand J. H. Emerton. The Entomological 

 Society of Ontario was represented by the Rev. C. J. S. Bethune, of Port Hope, and 

 H. H. Lyman, of Montreal. 



After the meeting had been called to order, the President, Mr. Scudder, delivered 

 the following address on " Problems in Entomology — 



Annual Address of the President. 



It is the good fortune of your President on this occasion to welcome you to his native 

 heath, where our favourite science has been longer, more uninterruptedly, and, perhaps, 

 more zealously cultivated than anywhere else in the new world. Here, in the last 

 century, Peck studied the cankerworm and the slug- worm of the cherry, and, in late years, 

 Khynchaenus, Stenocorus, and Cossus — all highly destructive insects. Here lived Harris, 

 who cultivated Entomology in its broadest sense, and whose classic treatise was the first 

 important Government publication on injurious insects. Here, to-day, we have two Asso- 

 ciations for our work, consisting, it will be confessed, of nearly the same individuals, and 

 not many of them, but meeting frequently — one in Boston, the other in Cambridge. 

 Harvard acknowledges the claims of our study in supporting not only an instructor in 

 Entomology at its Agricultural School, but a full professor of the same in the University 

 at large. 



Harris attributed to Peck his special interest in Entomology, and his first paper, that 

 on the salt-marsh caterpillar, appeared in the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository only 

 four years after Peck's last, in the same magazine, on cherry and oak insects. How many 

 of us have drawn our first inspirations from Harris 1 Yet probably not one of our local 

 Entomologists ever saw him. The general direction of Harris' studies doubtless arose 

 from the predilections of his instructor ; and the unprecedented growth of economic Ento- 

 mology in this country, where it flourishes as nowhere else, must be credited primarily to 

 the influence of Harris' work. With every temptation which the wealth of new material 

 about him could give, or which a very extensive correspondence with naturalists devoting 

 themselves almost exclusively to systematic work, like Say, would naturally foster, he 

 wisely followed the bent given his studies by his early training under Peck, and left a 

 better example and a more generous and enduring influence. 



In our own day, the spreading territory of the United States, the penetration of its 

 wilds, and the intersection of its whole area by routes of travel, the wider distribution 

 and greatly increased numbers of local Entomologists, as well as the demand for our 

 natural products abroad, have set also before us the same temptation to study only new 



