There is a constant demand, especially from correspondents of the Museum and also of the Department of Agriculture, for information as to how to collect, preserve, and mount insects. There is also great need of some simple directions on a great many other points connected with the proper packing of insects for transmission through the mails or otherwise; labeling; methods of rearing; boxes and cabinets; text-books, etc. Interest in the subject of entomology has, in fact, made rapid growth in the last few years, and now that nearly every State has an official entomologist connected with its State Agricultural Experiment Station, the number of persons interested in the subject may be expected to increase largely in the near future. I have hitherto made use of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, No. 261, which is a pamphlet on collecting and preserving insects prepared by Dr. A. S. Packard. This is out of print, and I have been requested by Prof. Goode to prepare for Bulletin 39, U. S. N. M., something that would cover the whole ground and give the more essential information needed for collectors and students of insect life. I have deemed it unnecessary to go too much into detail, but have studied not to omit anything essential. Customs and methods vary in different countries and with different individuals, but the recommendations contained in the following pages are based upon my own experience and that of my assistants and many acquaintances, and embrace the methods which the large majority of American entomologists have found most satisfactory.

Much of the matter is repeated bodily from the directions for collecting and preserving insects published in my Fifth Report on the Insects of Missouri (1872) and quotations not otherwise credited are from that Report. The illustrations, also, when not otherwise credited or not originally made for this paper, are from my previous writings. Some are taken from Dr. Packard's pamphlet, already mentioned; others, with the permission of Assistant Secretary Willits, from the publications of the Department of Agriculture, while a number have been especially made for the occasion, either from photographs, or from drawings by Miss L. Sullivan or Dr. Geo. Marx or Mr. C. L. Marlatt. When enlarged, the natural size is indicated in hair-line. In the preparation of the pamphlet I have had the assistance of Mr. E. A. Schwarz, and more particularly of Mr. C. L. Marlatt, to both of whom I desire here to express my obligations.

C. V. R.

By C. V. Riley,

Honorary Curator of the Department of Insects, U. S. National Museum.

The term “insect” comes from the Latin insectum, and signifies “cut into.” It expresses one of the prime characteristics of this class of animals, namely, that of segmentation. This feature of having the body divided into rings or segments by transverse incisions is possessed by other large groups of animals, and was considered of sufficient importance by Cuvier to lead him, in his system of classification, to group with Insects, under the general term Articulata, Worms, Crustacea, Spiders, and Myriapods. Worms differ from the other four groups in having no articulated appendages, and in having a soft body-wall or integument instead of a dense chitinous covering, and are separated as a special class Vermes. The other four groups of segmented animals possess in common the feature of jointed appendages and a covering of chitinous plates, and are brought together under the term Arthropoda. The division of the body into a series of segments by transverse incisions, characteristic of these animals and these only, justifies the use of Cuvier's old name, Articulates, as this segmented feature represents a definite relationship and a natural division—as much so as the vertebral column in Vertebrates. The Cuvierian name should be retained as a coördinate of Vertebrates, Molluscs, etc., and the terms Vermes and Arthropods may be conveniently used to designate the two natural divisions of the Articulates.