XIV MEMOIR. 



fessor, about 1820. Prof. Peck died two years later, and 

 his manuscripts were submitted for examination to the two 

 Doctors Harris, who reported adversely to the publication, 

 finding them apparently correct and faithful, but a little be- 

 hind the times. Yet Prof. Peck was reputed a man of real 

 science in his day, and a recommendation of him by Sir 

 Joseph Banks used to be quoted. His only memorial now 

 remains in the baptismal name of one minute insect, the 

 Xenos Peckii of Kirby, which as being at that time the only 

 species of its genus, and the only genus of its order, repre- 

 sented in a certain degree the very aristocracy of science. 



After his graduation Dr. Harris devoted himself to the 

 study of medicine, took his medical degree in 1820, and 

 entered on the practice of his profession at Milton, in con- 

 nection with Dr. Amos Holbrook, whose daughter (Cath- 

 erine) he afterwards married. Dr. Holbrook was an eminent 

 practitioner in his day, being Vice-President of the Massa- 

 chusetts Medical Society, and Corresponding Member of 

 several foreign associations. After two or three years, Dr. 

 Harris took an office for himself in Dorchester Village, near 

 Milton Lower Falls. I do not know how far he became 

 really attached to his profession ; he never refers to it in 



i 



his correspondence, and seems to have entirely quitted it 

 after his academical appointment, except when he once took 

 for a few weeks the practice of Dr. Plympton, during the 

 illness of that well known Cambridge physician. It was 

 while he was a resident of Milton and Dorchester that the 

 greater part of his out-door researches in entomology must 

 have been made. Yet he wrote to Prof. Hentz (June 5, 

 1829) that he " had but very little time to devote to the 



