The President's Address. 



129 



and a good many of the new species brought to this country by M. Cha- 

 brillac have been described by Fairmaire and others in the Transactions 

 of the Entomological Society of France. The contributions to the en- 

 tomology of the Andes, in the neighbourhood of Quito, sent to this 

 country by our correspondent Professor Jameson, have been partially 

 recorded by Dr Baly and myself, and a number of small species from 

 Panama have been described by Count Motschoulsky. 



Dr Leconte, a worthy son of a worthy sire, has taken entire possession 

 of North America. He is the chief, indeed almost the only, entomological 

 author now working in America ; but he is a host in himself. He has 

 reviewed most of the difficult families in the United States ; his revisions, 

 in fact, being singularly able monographs, evolving the most original 

 views. He has thus gone over the CicindelidcB, Carabidce, including 

 the Amarce and Bembidia, the Hydrocantliaridcv, the Palpicornes, the 

 Buprestido?, the JNateridce, the Lamellicornes, and the Longicornes 

 of North America. He has, along with Dr Harris and Melsheimer, 

 brought out the catalogue of species of Coleoptera in the United States, 

 and has lent his hand in every quarter of the States to the advancement 

 of zoological knowledge. I am here restricted to sj>eaking of his doings 

 in relation to the Coleoptera ; but, were the time fitting, I might enlarge 

 on his services in regard to almost every class of animals, from the Verte- 

 brata downwards. In the Coleoptera, at an early period, we have from 

 his pen descriptions cf numerous species from California ; we have de- 

 scriptions of species from Texas ; we have descriptions of species from 

 Lake Superior — part of the report by Agassiz on that district ; we have 

 descriptions of species collected during the expedition sent to report upon 

 the routes proposed for the railway across the Isthmus of Panama — many 

 the product of his own collections, for I believe his labours as a field ento- 

 mologist are not less than his talents and acumen as a closet naturalist. 

 All this work has been done within the last few years, and it is still 

 going on. We may hail Dr Leconte as one of the first living entomolo- 

 gists ; and when we remember how comparatively scant a sympathy he 

 has in his own country, the homage we pay him will only be the more 

 hearty. Thanks to the Smithsonian Institution, we shall have most of Dr 

 Leconte's works in our library. 



A portion of North America, possessing special interest from its resem- 

 blance to a part of the opposite continent of Asia — I mean the Salt Lake 

 region as compared with the Caspian district — has lately been somewhat 

 opened. M. Lorquin, an able French entomologist, has made collections 

 in that district, and they have reached Paris, and are in the hands of M. 

 Boisduval, the lepidopterist. It is the Lepidoptera to which he chiefly 

 restricts himself, and it is to them he specially refers in a notice of the 

 collection given by him to the Entomological Society of France. He 

 says, " Among these insects, many, although specifically new, have the 

 aspect of those of the mountains of Europe, and especially of Siberia ; 

 several even are identical with some of our species." 



Dr Asa Fitch, chiefly known as a zealous hemipterist, has lately brought 

 out, under the auspices of the State Government of Pennsylvania, a work 

 on the noxious insects of that State ; among which the habits of some 

 Coleoptera are described. The care, accuracy, and perseverance shown 

 in this work are very remarkable. 



Such is a hasty and imperfect account of what has been doing in the 

 science of Entomology (department Coleoptera) for the last three years ; 

 for its imperfections I now crave your apology. Imperfect, however, as 

 it is, I think the impression which it must leave upon our minds is one of 

 awe and amazement at the inexhaustible prolificness of Nature, and some- 

 thing also of admiration for the courage with which puny Man has set 



