ACTING STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
11 
pardoned, therefore, if I occasionally indulge in short digressions, 
which, though of no immediate bearing upon the main subject of 
the Report, seem to be calculated to arouse an inquiring spirit in 
the mind of the reader, and gradually to introduce him to the 
higher and more attractive and more intellectual departments of 
Natural History. 
Several discoveries in Economic Entomology, made by myself 
since I became connected with your Society through the action 
taken by its Executive Board on the 21st of May last, were pub¬ 
lished at the time in the columns of the now defunct Practical 
Entomologist , of which I was for the first year of its existence 
Associate Editor, and for the second year sole Editor. These 
I have not thought it necessary or advisable to reproduce in the 
following pages, because I have aimed as far as possible to insert 
nothing here but what is original and hitherto unpublished. On 
the other hand, certain other subjects have been entirely omitted, 
because my investigations on those subjects are as yet uncompleted ; 
and others again, because they have reference to insects which are 
injurious, not to the Gardener and the Fruit-grower, but solely, or 
almost entirely, to the Farmer. 
At some future day — and, if it be possible, by the time that the 
next Biennial Session of the Legislature takes place — I hope to 
prepare a General Manual of the chief Noxious Insects of Illinois, 
comprising all the known facts respecting them that ought to 
become familiar to the intelligent Farmers and Gardeners and 
Fruit-growers of this State, no matter whether those facts be 
already published, or whether they be original. Such a Manual, 
to be of the greatest practical utility, would require to be very copi¬ 
ously illustrated ; but a State, that is wealthy enough to spend three 
million dollars on a new State-house, ought to be able to afford a 
few thousand dollars for the publication of a work of primary 
necessity for nearly nine-tenths of its population. 
A few purely scientific descriptions, which it has been requisite 
to insert in this Report, are printed in smaller type, because they 
are intended chiefly for the use of the few persons, who may desire 
to identify scientifically the species therein described. But even 
these, I have couched, so far as possible, in popular language, oc- 
