ANNUAL ADDRESS 
BY 
C. V. RILEY, /A. AL, Ph. IX 
AS PRESIDENT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
OF WASHINGTON FOR THE YEAR 1884. 
WASHINGTON : 
Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 
1886. [Extracted from Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington, Yol. I, No. 1, 
pp. 17-27, meeting of March 12, 1885.] 
ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 
Fellow-Members :—Your president has experienced some dif- 
ficulty in choosing a subject upon which to address you as required 
by our constitution. Our Society is too young for retrospect, 
while a review of entomological events of a general char- 
acter is in a measure forestalled by the various publications de- 
voted to our science and by the English and German Zoological 
Records. Some of the incidents of the year, so far as North 
America are concerned, are also recorded in my annual report 
as U. S. Entomologist. Yet it may be interesting to briefly re- 
fer to a few facts that have characterized the year just closed and 
that are sufficiently interesting to warrant comment. 
On May 20th, Prof. A. J. Cook sent me some Noctuid larva} about 
one-third grown, which were appearing in vast bodies, like the 
Army Worm, in parts of Michigan. While resembling most the 
darker forms of the larva of Lctphygma frugiperda Sm. & 
Abb., they yet differed and did not fully correspond with any of 
the numerous Noctuid larvas known to me. The species subse- 
quently, upon being reared to the imago by Prof. Cook, proved 
to be Agrotis fennica Treitschke, and, as subsequent reports 
showed, was abundant and destructive over a wide area and par- 
ticularly in the Ottawa district in Canada. The larval history 
of the species had not previously been known ; neither had the 
species been counted as among our injurious insects. It is widely 
distributed, occurring in all parts of the Northern States and on 
the Pacific. The worm first appeared in April, and the destruc- 
tive brood in May was probably a second brood. Prof. Cook 
gives a good account of it with very poor figures in his “ Notes 
from the Entomological Laboratory of the Michigan Agricultural 
College,” published independently and without date. It seems 
to be a general feeder, though affecting principally grass, clover 
and strawberries. 
Almost every year some species scarcely heard of before thus ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
becomes conspicuous, and this sudden and wide-spread appearance 
of a species not previously noticeable is one of the most interesting 
phenomena presented for our consideration, and I have discussed 
it in a paper on 44 New Insects Injurious to Agriculture,” read at 
the Cincinnati meeting of the A. A. A. S. in 1881, part of the 
abstract of which is in these words : 
44 These new destructive species may either be (i) recently in- 
troduced species from some foreign country, (2) native species 
hitherto unobserved or unrecorded, and new in the sense of not be- 
ing described, or (3) native species well known to entomologists, 
but not previously recorded as injurious. 
44 The author argues that in the last two categories, more par- 
ticularly, we frequently have to deal with newly-acquired habits, 
and in the second category with newly-acquired characters that in 
many cases systematists would consider of specific value. In 
short, he believes that certain individuals of a species, which has 
hitherto fed in obscurity on some wild plant, may take to feeding 
on a cultivated plant, and with the change of habit undergo in 
the course of a few years a sufficient change of character to be 
counted a new species. Increasing and spreading at the rapid 
rate which the prolificacy of most insects permits, the species 
finally becomes a pest, and necessarily attracts the attention of the 
farmer. The presumption is that it could not at any previous 
time have done similar injury without attracting similar attention ; 
in fact, that the habit is newly acquired. The author reasons that 
just as variation in plant life is often sudden, as in the 4 sport,’ 
and that new characters which may be perpetuated are thus 
created, so in insects there are comparatively sudden changes 
which, under favoring conditions, are perpetuated. I11 this way 
characters which most systematists would consider as specific, 
originate within periods that are very brief compared to those 
which evolutionists believe to be necessary for the differentiation 
of specific forms among the higher animals.” 
The cut-worms seem to have been unusually abundant during 
the spring of 1884, and one species, viz.., Hadena devastatrix 
Brace, common to both Europe and America, attracted a great 
deal of attention and did much injury in Manitoba. 
Another insect which deserves particular mention is Nematus 
erichsonii. This was first ascertained to be the cause of the OF WASHINGTON. 
death of the Larch, or Hackmatack, in Maine and other parts of 
New England, during the year 1883, when I had the opportunity 
of witnessing, in company with Dr. Packard, the wide-spread 
devastation which it had caused. It was fully reported on by Dr. 
Packard in the annual report of the LL S. Entomologist for 1883, 
and has, during the past year, been observed doing similar injury 
to Larch in parts of Canada. 
The Clover Leaf-beetle ( Phytononius punctatus) also attracted 
unusual attention in 1884 and was said, at the meeting of the 
Entomological Club of the A. A. A. S., to have attacked beans. 
It has also been reported as quite abundant in parts of Ontario, 
and the beetle was found in countless numbers on the western 
shore of Lake Erie. Nothing further as to its life habits has 
been added to that published by me in 1881, but its occurrence 
in such numbers, and over so large an extent of country, so soon 
after its first injuries were reported, presents abundant cause for 
reflection and would indicate that the species is rapidly extending 
its range, especially westward. 
Another species of the same genus, namely, P. nigrirostris, 
has been found in Canada by Mr. Jas. Fletcher, of Ottawa, also 
feeding upon clover. 
Pulvinaria innumerabilis was unusually abundant in 1884 in 
all parts of the country. There is need of very careful study of 
the forms found upon so many different trees, forms which, on 
account of their general resemblance, are looked upon as being 
one and the same species. So far as experiments go, some which 
I made some 12 years since at Kirkwood, Mo., by transferring 
the young from one plant to another, prove, so far as such evi- 
dence is proof, that the species found upon Oak, Maple and 
Grape-vine are the same ; but where such evidence is wanting, 
we must study not only the young and the males but the struc- 
tural characteristics, especially those of the anal plate in the 
females, before we can feel assured that we have to deal with but 
one species. 
That cosmopolitan butterfly Pyrameis cardui attracted con- 
siderable attention during the year, feeding upon our nettles and 
thistles. I refer to it, however, chiefly because of its migrations, 
notices of which have been abundant in European journals. The 
fact of the extended migration of butterflies has only recently ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
come to be fully appreciated. I have discussed these butterfly 
migrations, so far as our Danais archippus is concerned, in an 
article in the Scientific American for April 6th, 1878, entitled 
“ The Migration of Butterflies,” and shown that there is a very 
general southward movement, accompanied by congregation and 
concentration, from the extreme northwestern portion of the 
country to the Gulf States in autumn, and a return migration and 
dispersion the ensuing spring and summer. 
It is a noteworthy fact that migrating butterflies have a wide range. 
That Pyrameis cardui flies in vast numbers over large stretches 
of the European Continent and across the Channel to the British 
Isles is a well-established fact, and the migratory tendencies have 
their explanation, in all probability, in the same promoting 
causes as those of our Rocky Mountain locust, i. <?., chiefly ex- 
cessive multiplication and want of fresh food. Throughout 
southern Europe, or at least large proportions of it, the month of 
July is apt to be excessively dry. I witnessed last year, early in 
July, in South France, a phenomenal occurrence of this butter- 
fly. Its larvae had absolutely devoured all the thistles and even 
the cultivated artichokes in those portions of the Midi which I 
visited, and I saw as many as 30 chrysalides upon a single grape- 
leaf in a vineyard adjacent to a railroad. The butterflies were 
excessively numerous along the lines of the different railroads, 
seeking in vain for fresh plants upon which to lay their eggs, and 
it is no wonder that under such circumstances they congregate in 
increasing numbers and finally rise in the air and travel such 
long distances, guided by the prevailing winds. What is true of 
this particular species is likewise applicable to some of the Yel- 
lows (genus Colias). I shall never forget an experience on the 
morning of July 2d in training from Montpellier northward. As 
the train swept along it stirred up for many miles a continuous 
cloud of brown, yellow, and white butterflies, consisting chiefly 
of the species just mentioned and the common Pieris rupee. In 
reference to this last species it may perhaps be well to mention 
the successful introduction, here at Washington, of one of its 
chief parasites, the Apanteles glotnerattis. 
Osten Sacken has recently called attention, in the Wiener 
Entomologische Zeitung, to the fact that P. J. Stepanoff has 
published in Russian (Proc. of the Nat. Hist. Soc. of the Univ. OF WASHINGTON. 
of Kharkoff, vol. xv), an account of the parasitism of the larva 
of Systcechus leucophceus Meig. in the egg-sacs of Stauronotus 
vastator Stev. His observations seem to have covered also the 
years 1879 and 1880, the same period during which I was gradu- 
ally getting the truth as to the true character of the Bombyliid 
larvae infesting the egg-sacs of Caloptenus spretus. It will be 
remembered by most of you that Mr. J. Calvert, as subsequently 
appeared in the Transactions of the London Entomological So- 
ciety, was, during the same period, making similar observations 
in the Dardanelles. While the observations of Mr. J. G. 
Lemmon in California were subsequent to and instigated by my 
own (he having been employed by me to make observations 
and report on Camnula pellucida), arid our observations cannot 
therefore be considered independent, there seems little doubt that 
those of Calvert and Stepanoff were entirely independent, and, as 
Osten Sacken points out, it is a little remarkable that in three 
different parts of the world similar original facts on the same 
family and even the same genera were being observed during the 
same year. Such coincidences are not at all rare in the history 
of discovery ; indeed, they are sufficiently frequent to lead to the 
conclusion that they are due, in no small measure, to similar fa- 
vorable opportunities owing to the abnormal abundance of the 
species observed. 
The correspondence between StepanofF’s observations and my 
own go still farther, for he also found an Anthracid, namely, 
Mulio obscurus, similarly feeding in the larva state on the locust 
eggs, just as I found Triodites mus associated with Systcechus 
oreas; while he discovered also an Anthomyia egg-parasite 
which he determined as Anthomyia radicum, thus referring it to 
the very species to which originally I referred ours, but which 
was subsequently decided by Meade to be Anthomyia angusti- 
frons. 
While touching on the egg-parasites of the Acridiidae, it may be 
of interest to mention that I have recently received from Dr. A. 
Ernst, of Caracas, Venezuela, a number of specimens of a Scelio 
which he found very abundant in the eggs of Acridium perc- 
grinum. The receipt of the specimens from Dr. Ernst has led me 
to study more carefully the species originally described as Calopten- 
obia ovivora, but which was subsequently, upon further examina- ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
tion, referred to Seel to famelicus Say. The result of the recent 
studies would indicate that Caloptettobia ovivora, while belonging 
properly to the genus Scelio, is really quite distinct from Scelio 
famelicus, and will therefore hold good specifically. The speci- 
mens were bred from eggs of (Edipoda Carolina by Mr. S. H. 
Scudder. Those from Dr. Ernst are larger and constitute a new 
species which I propose to call ernstii. while others bred from 
the eggs of Caloptenus at/anis constitute a third species inter- 
mediate in size between the other two, and which will be 
described as caloptenorum. Dr. Ernst has also found some 
other parasites of the locusts themselves, and notably Priononyx 
striata Sm., just as we found P.atrata St. F. attacking spretus; 
also a species of Mermis. All these facts go to show how great 
is the unity of habit in the same genus in widely different parts of 
the world. 
During the year I have had an excellent opportunity of studying 
the course of the French people in their fight against Phylloxera 
vastatrix, and it has been most gratifying to see how at last the 
insect is no longer feared by those who have tried most persist- 
ently to deal with it. With the improved methods of applying 
bisulphide of carbon, both by hand injectors and by more com- 
plicated machines drawn by horses, the French grape-grower can 
measurably protect his vineyards, and I have every hope that 
future experience with the kerosene emulsion will give them 
another important and valuable remedy ; but the chief reliance is 
on the resistant American vines, and it was most gratifying to 
find, over hundreds of square miles, vineyards previously devas- 
tated entirely reconstituted by such means. In fact it was notice- 
able that the grape-growers there were in far greater dread of the 
Downy Grape-leaf Mildew, Peronospora viticola, which was 
imported in 1877 upon American vines, than of the Phylloxera. 
Perhaps one of the most interesting discoveries of the year 1884 
is the mode of oviposition in some of our Carabidae. Schaupp 
(Bull. Br. Ent. Soc., I, p. 35) states that, having placed several 
specimens of Carabus limbatus in a breeding cage on March 
31st, he observed afterwards in the cage one larva and several 
eggs; again he says (1. c.) that in a cage wherein several 
Chlcenius cestivus and Galerita janus were kept he observed, 
on July 4th, one larva of Galerita, two of Chlcenius, and OF WASHINGTON. 
“several eggs.” He does not describe the eggs and only refers 
to them (1. c., p. 26) as “ usually imbedded in the earth.” 
From the terrestrial habits of most of our species one would 
expect that the eggs are deposited within the ground, and such 
may yet prove to be the case with many; but I have proved by 
actual breeding from eggs to the imago that it is not so with 
Chlcenius impunctifrons, and have strong proof that Chi. cesti- 
vus, Scarites subterraneus and the genera Dlccelus and 
Galerita share with that species its singular mode of oviposition. 
The remarkable and unexpected fact, in insects so essentially 
terrestrial, is that the eggs are laid singly on the leaves of trees 
and shrubs and encased in a covering of mud or clay. I had 
often observed these little convex mud-cells on the underside of 
leaves while collecting along the Mississippi in Missouri in years 
gone by, and was puzzled to make out their real nature. In 
May and June, 1SS3, while collecting on the Virginia side of the 
Potomac with other members of this Societv, I found these clay 
cells tolerably common and, fortunately, fresh, each containing a 
large soft white egg. That year I obtained larvse, but only during 
the past year were any of these reared to the imago. Similarly 
remarkable oviposition away from the food or habitat of the 
larva is known in the Lepidoptera and Neuroptera. 
Gentlemen, it is just one year ago this evening that we organ- 
ized, and while we have little to review, it may not be unprofit- 
able to anticipate our future, or at least what we should hope and 
aim for. 
We organized to promote the study of Entomology in all its 
bearings and to cultivate social and friendly relations between those 
in any way interested in the science. Those most interested in 
the organization had the latter object most prominently in mind. 
We have here in Washington a number of collectors and ama- 
teurs and some well-known specialists, in addition to the force of 
the Entomological Division of the Department of Agriculture. 
The Division constitutes a force that I feel justly proud of, and 
the working of which has been commended by those who have 
had occasion to become familiar with it. Yet how far it falls 
short of my own ideal and of the necessities of the country, or 
how difficult it is to build it up to that ideal under the unfortunate 
political unscientific atmosphere that pervades the Department, ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
no one more fully appreciates than myself. The facts remain, 
however, that there is a good number of active observers whose 
interest in the subject of entomology is not confined to the par- 
ticular biologic and economic work of the Division, but encom- 
passes much that could not properly be brought within its scope. 
The members of the Division have, naturally, become members 
of the Society and form a good basis for its existence ; yet it 
would be manifestly unnecessary, if not improper, for the mem- 
bers of the force to band together in private simply for the dis- 
cussion of those entomological subjects which they are working 
with me to further in official capacities. 
It was to get away from official surroundings, away from the 
work of the U. S. Entomologist, that the members of the Di- 
vision decided to join in the organization of this Society. It was 
still more to get better acquainted with those of kindred tastes 
outside the Department, in Baltimore and elsewhere, as well as 
in Washington, and to cultivate social intercourse and interchange 
of views and experience. 
From this standpoint it was, perhaps, unfortunate that you 
chose me as your presiding officer; for I feel deeply that we 
should avoid everything that may create the impression that the 
Society is but an echo of the official organization. 
Our efforts to enlist the sympathy and co-operation of all the 
entomologists have been measurably successful, if not as fully so 
as we have wished ; but by perseverance and creditable work, we 
may hope to enlist the co-operation of all. and in time add them 
all to our roll of members. 
The field is wide and there is an abundance of work to do, 
and more particularly serious work. It is more creditable to any 
author to publish some full and complete account of any one in- 
sect, whose characters and habits have hitherto been unknown, 
or a synopsis or monograph of some genus or family, than to 
cast to the world a whole number of hasty descriptions of spe- 
cies ; for while descriptive work thoroughly and faithfully done 
is of the highest order and most creditable, it is a fact that many 
entomological writers have busied themselves with descriptive 
work which has had little other result than to confuse and per- 
plex all subsequent honest and serious workers in the same field. 
Certain recent descriptive Coleopterological workers might be OF WASHINGTON. 
cited, by way of illustration ; but it is chiefly among Lepidopter- 
ists that the unsatisfactory and careless descriptions prevail. I 
would earnestly urge upon all the members of our Society the 
great value and significance of anatomical, embryological and 
histological work, and such monographic work as I have already 
indicated. 
We are fortunate, not only in our surroundings here in Wash- 
ington, but—and we may say it without vanity—also in the di- 
versity of the interests which our membership represents. 
Messrs. Schwarz and Hubbard are already known for their 
work in Coleoptera. Mr. Howard is devoting himself to the 
study of the smaller Hymenoptera, and will easily be led to 
interest himself more and more in the whole Order. Our 
neighbor in Baltimore, Mr. Uhler, is authority in Hemiptera, 
and Mr. Heidemann has begun to collect in this Order with 
enthusiasm. Mr. Pergande has for some time been carefully 
studying the Thripidae. Mr. Bruner is taking up the Orthoptera, 
Mr. Smith is doing good work in the Lepidoptera, while Mr. 
Marx is well qualified in Arachnida. 
In the general bibliography of the subject Mr. Mann has few 
superiors, and we have several enthusiastic collectors who in due 
time will, let us hope, make their mark in some specialty. 
My own studies are confined to no one Order, but rather em- 
brace biologic studies in all Orders, though by way of specialty 
I have for many years been accumulating material and notes on 
galls and gall insects, of all Orders, on the Homoptera and on the 
Diptera. 
While six years ago there were no collections in Washington 
worthy the name, beyond that of Coleoptera by Mr. Ulke and that 
of Lepidoptera by Mr. Schoenborn, we have to-day, what with 
the private and national collections at command, very fair repre- 
sentation in all Orders. 
We have started on a moderate basis in the belief that it is bet- 
ter to go slow at first than to exhibit abnormal activity that coidd 
not be kept up in subsequent years. Slow development is corre- 
lated with longevity in the animal kingdom, and the principle has 
been exemplified in the history of some societies. 
“ Large streams from little fountains flow, 
Tall oaks from little acorns grow,” ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, ETC. 
and let us hope that there is a great future for the Entomological 
Society of Washington. 
We have for reference, aside from our private libraries, those 
of the Department of Agriculture, the National Museum, and of 
Congress, which are rapidly growing more extensive and valu- 
able. We have, moreover, a most interesting faunal location, 
in which are represented many interesting species ; for, while our 
fauna is essentially southern, many forms belonging to the north- 
ern and southern faunas unite, and have their limit line in the 
District. We have already planned the preparation of an insect 
faunal list of the District, and I sincerely hope that during the 
coming season further material for this work will be diligently 
collected ; for the publishing of such a list, preliminary though it 
should be, will prove a fitting debiit before the world. We have 
therefore every reason to be hopeful for our Society. 
Many of us are connected with Government work, and official 
life at best is more or less uncertain. Some of us may not tarry 
long in Washington, or may soon cease to become active mem- 
bers, but there is every promise that others will take the places 
of those of us who may leave, and in closing this first presidential 
address of the Entomological Society of Washington, I can but 
express my earnest hope that it will have a grand future, and help 
to promote all that is high and noble in the study of insect life, 
and to raise that study in the eyes of our fellow-men; to render 
it, in other words, worthy of the highest talent and the deepest 
thought.