184 John Lora Curtis. — [ZOE 
initial letters of species will settle itself in time into a matter of 
convenience, there being no real rule of grammar involved— 
the Romans as every one knows had only one kind of letters— 
all capitals. 
Rules relating to the formation of systematic names had per- 
haps better be only recommendatory. The aspect of the purist 
in the language of science is one of the most ridiculous things 
the world has encountered. The Latin of modern science would 
at its best be a foreign language to Cicero, and the attempt to 
exclude names not formed according to the best models is 
especially characteristic of those who, having rather late in life 
acquired a ‘‘little Latin and less Greek,” are painfully anxious 
to advertise the fact. 
° 
JOHN LORA CURTIS. 
John Lora Curtis, the young California araneologist, who died 
in Oakland on February 19, 1893, was a life-long invalid. He was 
confined to’a wheel-chair for thirteen years, more than half of his 
short life. He was so weak that even a book was too large a bur- 
den for hishands. Vet he wasa better student and lover of nature 
than many stronger men. His education was necessarily desul- 
tory. He began his study of spiders in his sixteenth year, and 
did his collecting of specimens mostly at second hand, through 
friends and correspondents, In this way he collected and pre- 
served more than two hundred species of spiders, almost alto- 
gether from California. He estimated that, at a reasonably low 
figure, fifty of these were new to science. 
Lack of funds kept his library small, and he had not been 
able to secure such works on American spiders as Keyserling’s, 
therefore he was very diffident about offering to publish for new 
what might prove to be species already described. Had his life 
been spared only a few years longer he surely would have added 
new forms to the list of described spiders of California. As itis, 
it remains the duty of some arachnologist to work over the 
specimens left by him with their accompanying notes, ; 
Just a few days before his death he had the pleasure of read- 
ing the proof of his first (and last) published article: 4 New 
