SAY’S HETEROPTEROUS HEMIPTERA. 
Note. —As I am unable for the reason already stated, to prepare for the pre¬ 
sent volume of Transactions a sufficient amount of matter to occupy the space 
which has latterly been assigned to Insects in this publication, I have thought 
this deficiency might well be supplied by an exceedingly rare tract of the late Mr. 
Say’s. J see this tract is quoted by Fieber and hence learn there is a copy of it in 
Germany. Mr. Say also sent a copy to his friend and correspondent Dr. Harris. 
And these two appear to be the only copies of this tract which are now extant. 
It would be very unjust to the greatest zoologist America has yet produced, 
were we, his countrymen, to allow this valuable production, which evidently cost 
him much labor, to remain thus in oblivion and lost to the world. Through 
the courtesy of Dr. Harris, I several years since was permitted to make a 
transcript of his copy, which I now place in the hands of the printer, well 
knowing that the scientific world will prize this production far higher than 
anything which my pen is able to furnish, whilst the agricultural and common 
reader cannot fail to value it, as containing the original descriptions of the 
Chinch bug, and many other important insects of our country which arc sim¬ 
ilarly injurious by puncturing and extracting the juices of vegetation. 
This tract was very carelessly printed, and abounds in typographical errors. 
I have avoided making any correction of these, thinking every one will prefer 
having this work as nearly as possible in the very form in which it originally 
appeared. In several instances, letters or words not in the original, are here 
inserted between brackets, where the text is elucidated hereby. Although the 
title page bears the date 1831, only the four first pages were printed in that 
year, as is evident from the reference under P. hilaris on page five, and fre¬ 
quently in the subsequent pages, to another tract, entitled “ New species of 
N. Amer. Insects found by J. Barabino,” which was not published till Jan¬ 
uary, 1832. 
A “Correspondence relative to the insect that destroys the Cotton Plant,” 
which I believe has never been published except in the New-IIarmony Disse¬ 
minator newspaper, and which certainly merits to be preserved, is inserted at 
the end of this tract. A-' F/ 
