HISTORY OF HIS WORK ON ENTOMOLOGY. 
Mr. Glover commenced his immense work on insects, known as “Illus- 
trations of North American Entomology,” in 1859. Portions of the 
work, that is, special plates of the orange and cotton insects, were en- 
graved a year or two prior to that date ; in fact, it may be said that he 
made two or three beginnings prior to the commencement of his ulti- 
mate scheme. A very early idea was a set of pocket plates represent- 
ing the common injurious species. Quite a number of these were en- 
graved by him, the plates, or a part of them at least, having been de- 
posited in the National Museum with those of his later work. These 
little plates measure about 2£ iuches by 4, the figures chiefly relating 
to the commonest forms of beetles and the smaller moths, with a few of 
their larvae, and a few insects in other orders. The plant affected 
usually appears in the center of the plate, greatly reduced of course, 
the insects in some cases being placed upon it. The work is well done, 
some of the figures being very soft. From a study of his early plates I 
place them among the first that he did after coming to Washington and 
while in the employ of the Patent Office, probably 1855. It is interest- 
ing to note that on all of Mr. Glover’s early plates, made in any consecu- 
tive number, whether upon stone or copper, the idea of showing plant and 
insects together appears, and the same idea was carried into the first 
plates of his final work, though soon abandoned.* 
His second beginning was the outgrowth of the scheme for a grand 
work upon economic entomology on octavo plates which should com- 
prise the principal plants of American agriculture, with the insects 
figured upon them. A motive for such work appears in the set of ex- 
quisite water-color drawings of flowers and insects, painted by Mr. Glover 
when a young man, and to which allusion has previously been made. 
Here are shown the plant, flower, and leaf, and the various stages of 
some species of the insect known to feed upon it. In a letter written 
to Mr. Clapham in 1856, where he alludes to a scheme for an agricul- 
tural museum, he says : 
Another idea is to go on with my work on insects — to have large engravings of our 
staple agricultural productions, such as cotton, corn, wheat, potatoes, and so forth. 
On the wheat root place the cut-worm, chrysalis, and moth ; on the ear place the 
wheat midge, etc., in short, to place every insect that destroys wheat upon the part 
injured, natural size and magnified, the plates to be issued by the Government, and 
distributed to every leading society, to be placed in their agricultural rooms. By 
* I have nearly the full series of his early plates, given me by their author from 
time to time, the collection forming an interesting study. 
29 
