26 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 
DEPARTMENT OF ENTOMOLOGY. 
THE NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 
Under the Supervision of Professor Tohn B. Smith, 
State Entomologist. 
The following is a list of the prepared insect now belonging 
to the Museum. 
NOTES ON THE COLLECTION OF INSECTS PREPARED FOR THE 
STATE MUSEUM. 
In preparing the cases of insects forming the general collec¬ 
tion two points have been kept in mind; first that the speci¬ 
mens should represent the New Jersey fauna; second, that as 
a whole, the collection should be educational, and that every 
box should be prepared with some particular object in view. 
In representing the New Jersey fauna it sometimes happens 
that its peculiarities can be beter brought out by introducing 
as a contrast some representatives of another fauna; hence 
it is not intended to limit the Exhibit to local species so 
strictly as to exclude comparative forms. 
It is not especially difficult to fill numerous boxes with 
specimens of butterflies, beetles and other insects, and, when 
these are properly classified and neatly arranged, they are 
useful and interesting. But it is impossible to go further and 
to make the exhibit educational as well: to give, beside the 
adult insects, also some idea of their life cycle, their method 
of development and the injury caused by them. The import¬ 
ance of the insect problem in agriculture and horticulture is 
now fully realized, and there is good reason why, in the State 
Museum, there should be a collection which in some measure 
at least illustrates some of the work done by the Experiment 
Station at New Brunswick. 
Keeping these general points in mind, each of the 36 boxes 
which have been thus far prepared, illustrates one general 
subject and sometimes one insect only; indeed in the case of 
the Periodical Cicada or seventeen year locust, I have felt 
justified in devoting three boxes to the one species, because 
