368 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
Until Riley came to Washington the policy of the National Museum 
had been to distribute the entomological collections received to 
various specialists and to maintain no national collection of insects. 
Riley's predecessor, Townend Glover, had preserved specimens only 
for illustrating and identifying them ; in consequence his remarkable 
work left but little impression upon the national collection. 
Upon the foundation laid in 1886 as above indicated, the insect 
collection of the Museum has grown by the addition of material from 
many sources. The principal collections acquired through Riley's 
influence (up to 1895) were those of the following collectors: 
John E. Smith (mostly Lepidoptera and Coleoptera). 
Martin L. Linell (Coleoptera). 
G. W. Belfrage (miscellaneous insects, mostly from Texas, but including 
Palaearctic Coleoptera and Hymenoptera). 
H. K. Morrison (miscellaneous insects from Georgia, the White Mountains 
of New Hampshire, and the West ; many named Coleoptera ) . 
Asa Fitch, first State entomologist of New York (miscellaneous insects, with 
some types acquired long after his death). 
Cyrus Thomas, State entomologist of Illinois (grasshoppers). 
S. W. Williston (type collection of Syrphidae). 
Geo. Marx (spiders and other arachnids). 
C. H. Bollman (myriopods). 
The sudden death of Riley in 1895, and the appointment of Dr. 
L. O. Howard, his successor in the Agricultural Department, as honor- 
ary curator in the Museum, was another point of importance in the 
history of the collection. Simultaneously with Howard's appoint- 
ment several of his economic staff were designated as custodians in 
the Museum: Coquillett in Diptera, Ashmead in Hymenoptera, and 
Schwarz in Coleopterous Larvae. O. F. Cook, of the Bureau of 
Plant Industry, was made custodian of myriopods. The meaning 
of these appointments was that the men were recognized as authori- 
ties in the groups under their charge, and were expected, while con- 
tinuing on the pay roll of the Agricultural Department, to give much 
of their time to identifying insects sent in to the department ; and in 
the intervals of this work they were to classify, improve, and increase 
the collections. 
The entomological work of the Department of Agriculture in- 
creased rapidly from about this time; what had been called the 
Division of Entomology became a bureau shortly after. Its field 
stations with an enlarging number of workers brought ever larger 
quantities of material to Washington for identification, and this 
compelled a gradual increase in the number of custodians. In 1898 
H. G. Dyar was put in charge of Lepidoptera ; in 1899 Schwarz was 
given Coleoptera, and Banks, Arachnida. Others were added later. 
The completion of the new National Museum in 1908 afforded room 
for the staff, and the collections were segregated and placed in 
