MEMOIR. XXV 



The value thus claimed for this collection is not too great. 

 The delicate and systematic care with which Dr. Harris 

 preserved his insects has secured for them a permanent 

 usefulness. It is well known that no class of specimens in 

 Natural History requires such watchful pains. Almost all 

 his American insects remain labelled and arranged as he left 

 them, thus fixing firmly and indisputably every step he made 

 in their classification. His foreign collection was almost ruined 

 before it came into possession of the Natural History Soci- 

 ety, and that of Prof. Hentz was long since almost totally 

 destroyed. 



Yet with all this care in his indoor labors, no man knew 

 better than Dr. Harris that the best work of a naturalist 

 must be done out of doors. He had few leisure hours, and 

 even the blessed summer vacation must be largely devoted to 

 the annual examination of the dusty library. But his minute 

 observations on insect- transformation still remain something ex- 

 traordinary, and many an experienced entomologist has won- 

 dered how or where Dr. Harris traced from the egg the 

 varied forms of some little insect which others hardly knew 

 in its completeness. His rare skill with the pencil aided him 







in this work, as in his studies of classification. As he learned 

 to classify butterflies by drawing the nervures of their wings, 

 so he fixed by copying each successive stage of development. 

 His excursions, too, though rare, were effectual ; he had the 

 quick step, the roving eye and the prompt fingers of a born 

 naturalist ; he could convert his umbrella into a net, and his 

 hat into a collecting-box ; he prolonged his quest into the 

 night with a lantern, and into November by searching be- 

 neath the bark of trees. Every great discovery was an 



