A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE NATURAL SCIENCES. VOL. II. AUGUST 1876.-No. 2. Collection of Economic Entomology in the Gov- This collection, filling 24 cases or drawers, and numbering nearly 1,000 specimens, comprises the most common forms of the injurious and beneficial insects of the United States. The collection is by no means complete, but will serve to illustrate the plan of arrangement, which is especially adapted to Cabinets of Agricultural Colleges, State Museums and similar Institutions. The cases measure 16 x 21 inches and 21⁄2 inches deep, outside measurement. They are made of whitewood or poplar, 3% inches thick, dovetailed at the corners, with the bottom rabbetted in; the sides are made of two pieces, forming the box proper, about 11⁄2 inches high, and a cover one inch, which is grooved on the inner surface near the top, (about 1⁄2 inch,) for the reception of a plate of glass, fastened in, when the box is made, with putty. The cover and box, where they fit together, are tongued and grooved, and are held together by brass. hooks and eyes on either side. The plan of arrangement is to show, in one group, the insect foes of a certain food plant, in the four stages of egg, larva, pupa and insect, accompanied by specimens exhibiting the mode of injury, and classified according to the portion of the plant injured, as root, stalk, foliage or fruit, to be followed by the beneficial insects known to destroy a particular species; in short, the idea of such a collection is to be able to show at a glance the entire history of any insect, or group of insects. affecting any of our food crops. It has long been a favorite idea of ours to arrange such a collection, as it has always seemed that it would prove doubly interesting to the masses of the people who know little, and care less of the study of entomology. That there is little interest felt in the subject by the masses is conceded by all, and it is only since the subject of economic entomology has been agitated and kept before the people by our enterprising State and Official entomologists that it has begun to gain ground. Dry descriptions of shape, form and color, and long scientific terms are not supposed to prove very attractive to persons that have no particular desire to learn about the insects of our country, but when we go into the field, and trace these same insects through their wonderful transformations, when we can show them in their varied changes, and at the same time exhibit their fairy-like habitations, or curious specimens of their architecture, from a dull, uninteresting theme, it at once becomes one of absorbing interest. The question may be asked, cannot this be done as well in a scientifically arranged collection? We reply it should be done in every collection, but to the farmer or the fruit-grower, or even the student, before he has penetrated deeply into the mysteries of insect life, the subject comes home to him with more force, making more lasting impression if the destroyer and the destroyed are associated together. In visiting such a collection we will suppose the farmer, or fruitgrower, or student, should desire to see the Colorado potato beetle. The case devoted to the potato is opened and he sees a dried specimen of potato leaf, fastened upon a card label, covered with little patches of the golden yellow eggs of this insect; next he observes the larvæ, of various sizes, either in alcohol, or prepared by "blowing;" then the pupa is shown to him; and to complete the story, the male and female of the perfect insect are displayed, some in a state of rest, some with wings expanded, and others in various positions to show marked portions of the body. Then, if it were possible, a denuded potato stalk should be shown to exhibit the peculiar "thoroughness" with which they do their work, and lastly the army of parasites that help to check their ravages, with samples of artificial contrivances in use by man to accomplish the same end, would "bring up the rear" and complete the history. Each card would be labelled with the scientific and common names of the specimen, or any information that is necessary to complete the history of the insects. After examining the Col orado species, he will be interested to know what other species are destructive to the potato, and in like manner, he will learn the history of Lema triliniata, Baridius trinotatus, Coptocycla clavata, and other species. When an insect is a general feeder it may be shown in the cases devoted to two or three only of the plants it is most destructive to, though on the card label, (which should be at least an inch by two inches in size,) the other plants it feeds upon should be named, or if found on vegetation generally, the word "omnivorous" explains the fact. In the present collection the first stages of many insects could not be shown, and in some cases the insects themselves were wanting, and so were supplied by water color drawings executed by Mr. F. G. Sanborn, to whom was given the work of arrangement. The design of arrangement has not been as fully carried out as could be desired, chiefly for want of specimens, particularly those illustrating the early stages of the insects. The present collection though, is a commencement, forming the nucleus of what may, some day, be the full realization of a complete cabinet of Economic Entomology. We think the plan of arrangement is new, and may become useful in an educational point of view, though it should be accompanied, in colleges and institutions, by a working collection, arranged according to families, tribes, genera and species, in order that the student may familiarize himself with classification while studying the habits of insects in relation to our farm products. The groups exhibited are as follows: Case A. Thirty-nine species of the insects destroying, either directly or indirectly, the root, stalk, foliage or fruit, (in the field and in the granary,) of Indian corn or maize. Case B. Insects destroying, or proving injurious to wheat, rye, oats, and other cereal crops. Twenty-two species. Case D. Case C. Insects destroying or injuring cotton. Thirty-three species. Insects destroying or injuring the potato. (Solanum tuberosum.) Sixteen species. Case E. Insects proving destructive to Cucurbitaceous plants, as cucumber, squash, melons, &c. Seven species. Insects destroying milkweed, &c. Twenty-five species. Case F. Insects destroying cabbage, turnip, &c., or the plants of the kitchen garden. Twenty-eight species. Case G. Insects injuring the grape vine, or its fruit. Thirty-one species. Case H. species. Case I. Insects injurious to fruit, fruit-trees, &c. Twenty-six Insects destroying, or proving injurious to the apple. Twenty-nine species. Case J. Insects that annoy the housewife, commonly called “household pests." Forty-one species. Case K. Insects aiding in the destruction of forest-trees. Thirtyseven species. Case L. Case M. Insects destroying the pine. Thirty-nine species. Insects destroying shade-trees. Twenty species. Insects injurious to man, by injuring or destroying the wood of various plants. Twenty-eight species. Case O. Gall-insects on the oak. Twenty-seven species. Fourteen Case P. Gall-insects of other plants. Forty-four species. Case Q. Insects destroying the eggs or young of fishes. species. Insects injurious or annoying to bees, to cattle, and to mankind. Thirty species. Case R. Objects of insect architecture, with the species employed in producing them. Forty-eight specimens. Cases S and T. In these two cases are shown seventy species of the most common forms of our beneficial insects. [These should have been placed after the insects they destroy, in the general collection, but it was decided to group them together for the present.] Case U. Thirty-one species of insects beneficial as scavengers, by removing filth and carrion. Case V and W. These two cases are devoted to silk-producing insects, and contain about thirty specimens illustrating this industry. Case X. In this case are gathered together a few insecticides," so-called, and traps or devices for destroying insects. I have thus endeavored, briefly, to give an outline of the plan of arrangement of this collection, mentioning merely the groups illustrated as a catalogue of the insects themselves would take more space than could be spared for the purpose. CHAS. R. DODGE. Shell Heaps in Maryland. It was many years ago and long before the first half of the present century had expired that I first saw one of these Indian accumulations of their housekeeping refuse. At that time the attention of scientists had not been especially directed to them as ethnological studies. They had been regarded by the farmer as convenient piles of material to be used as fertilizers, and in one of the Geological reports of Maryland, published about that time, Dr. Ducatel gave the arguments, pro and con, with a view of settling the question as to whether the heaps were old oyster shell banks, left high and dry on the land by a subsidence of the waters of Chesapeake Bay, or refuse shells thrown into a common heap by an encampment of Indians who frequented a particular place during the oyster season. The invariable separation of the two valves, the occurrence of broken pottery of cooking vessels, the bones of fish and quadrupeds used for food, with implements of stone of recognized aboriginal manufacture, taken in connection with the location of these accumulations, in a quiet creek convenient to the camp of the savage, would seem to decide them to be of ethnological interest entirely. As the shores of the Chesapeake and the Potomac once swarmed with a wild population, who derived their subsistence mostly from the free productions of nature, it is easy to comprehend how these heaps are so numerous, as to be found on the bay, rivers and creeks wherever you may chance to go ashore. During a summer vacation, being on a visit to an Eastern Shore County of Maryland, near one of the many small streams between Sassafras and Chester Rivers, and for the particular occasion, attending a reunion common among the neighbors after harvest, known as a fishing frolic, it was proposed, after suitable attention had been given to the business of the day, to pay a visit to one of these heaps, lying a little lower down the creek where the owner of the land was engaged in burning the shells into lime to be spread on his farm. Having arrived at the spot, a long low mound of shells and rubbish overgrown with bushes and weeds, came into view. A walnut tree of about fifteen inches in diameter, was growing out of the top of the ridge, as an evidence of the antiquity of the deposit. A cross section of it showed a base of twelve or fifteen feet with a vertical height of five or six. It |