38 
I have not been able to etch at all, so tbat my work remains at a stand-still ar present- 
In a few weeks, wbeu I am not so fully occupied as I am now, lintend to recommence 
etching. wheD I sball be happy to attempt your plates,* although I am afraid that 
you overestimate my abilities to do them, etc. 
For the next two or three years bis work was still more or less inter- 
rupted by Department affairs. There was now a divided interest. The 
new museum had been established, and to a certain extent it absorbed 
his attention and his thoughts. Then in 18G5 he spent several months in 
Europe, as has been mentioned, the exhibition of insects in Paris call- 
ing him abroad. I have his Paris note book, filled with pencil outlines 
of insects, and with written descriptions, which tells how well he spent 
his time while there. And the fact that the design of his work se- 
cured to him the grand gold medal of the Emperor above all other 
competitors was proof that it was practical and valuable even at 
that time, when it had not reached the half of its present scope or 
dimensions. s 
The writer became Mr. Glover's assistant in the Department of Ag- 
riculture in 1867. By this time entomological science in America had 
made such rapid strides and the study had become so widespread that 
there were workers and observers in all parts of the country. Through 
acquaintance and correspondence with many of these and through the 
regular correspondence of the office he was now able to secure large 
acquisitions of new material, so that the work, for a time partly neg- 
lected, was now being pushed forward uninterruptedly, saving the in- 
terruption of official hours, from 9 a. m. to 3 p. m. As near as I can re- 
call, on hasty examination of the plates, the Lepidoptera had been com- 
pleted, at this time, to plate 67 and supplement D, the supplement series 
having been commenced in order to keep the diurnals and their larvae 
together upon consecutive plates as the work progressed, the numbered 
plates being devoted to the moths. The Coleoptera had only reached 
plate 28 j the Orthoptera less than half its present number, 18 ; and the 
remaining orders even a less number. 
Meanwhile the text to accompany the plates was begun on somewhat 
the same principle as the ready -reference books which Mr. Glover had 
from time to time prepared for his private use. The earliest of these 
reference books were compiled or prepared in the years of service in 
the Patent Office (or perhaps even earlier), and at first, seemed to have 
been used by him as " vest pocket editions" of notes on the habits ol 
common insects. They were tiny blanks books, measuring 2J by 4 inches 
(of the size of a small pocket diary, and no thicker), into which had been 
closely copied, in penmanship as clear as copper-plate and as fine as 
print (250 to 300 words to the page), the chief facts connected with the 
natural history of well-known and injurious species, the food plants. 
habitat and other brief data, the whole conveniently arranged and iu- 
*These were drawings of the whig-veins of some thirty or forty species of Diptera. 
and which he afterwards prepared. 
