DIVISIOlSr OF INSECTS ALDRICH. 369 
several rooms. Vf. H. Ashmead was assistant curator from 1898 to 
1907, H. G. Dyar for a few months, and J. C. Crawford from 1908 
to 1911, and associate curator to 1919. 
Under the administration of Dr. Howard, the principal collections 
added up to 1900 were the following: 
The Hubbard and Schwarz collection, mostly Coleoptera and their 
larvae; this was accompanied with the entomological library of the 
donors, rich in complete sets, which formed the foundation of the 
present library of the division. 
The southern California collection of D. W. Coquillett, comprising 
mainly Diptera and Coleoptera, with some important Hj^menoptcra. 
Additions since 1900 have been numerous and important, especially 
in Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and Hemiptera ; but the limits of 
space forbid continuing the analj^sis further at present. 
A few lines may, however, be given to foreign collections, in which 
the beginnings have been in general more recent. Some named for- 
eign material was included in several of the collections noted above. 
In 1905-6 Busck and Knab collected in tropical North America un- 
der a grant from the Carnegie Institution, mosquitoes being the pri- 
mary object, though insects in other orders were also secured in some 
numbers. In 1907 Busck collected in the Canal Zone under the 
auspices of the Canal Commission. In 1911 the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution made a biological survey of the Canal Zone, in which Busck 
and Schwarz participated, Busck continuing the work the next year. 
In the butterflies and moths of tropical America the Museum be- 
gan to receive named material from William Schaus in 1901, the 
result of his own expeditions; his life work in this field has been 
generously devoted to the T^Iuseum, in recognition of which he was 
in 1919 made honorary assistant curator of insects. 
Dr. W. L. Abbott began sending to the division his collections from 
tropical Africa and Asia as early as 1890, and has continued to the 
present, his many shipments running well into the thousands of 
specimens. 
The custodians of various orders have in the last 20 years givei. 
increasing attention to exchanging as a means of acquiring named 
foreign insects, and through this method there is a constant growth 
of the foreign collection. The almost inconceivable number of kinds 
of insects in the world makes the undertaking a slow one, even to 
achieve here and there, for limited groups and for limited parts 
of the earth's surface, something approaching completeness. 
FUNCTIONS. 
The Division of Insects, as will appear from the preceding histor- 
ical sketch, is organized on a cooperative basis. The Bureau of En- 
tomology of the Department of Agriculture, which employs a very 
