38 
SHORT NOTICES OF BENJAMIN D. WALSH AND OTHERS 
Kennicott must have been younger than I, and therefore not yet 
forty, when he was found dead under a tree (from heart-disease ?) 
in May, 1866, at Nulato, on the Lower Yukon. 
“ In this dispensation of Providence, science has lost an ardent 
and successful votary, and the Institution one of the most valued 
collaborators. It is to him that we owe our introduction to the 
most important sources of information relative to the fur coun¬ 
tries, and it is principally through his exertions that the museum 
of the city of Chicago, of which he was the director, received its 
endowment and organization” (Professor Henry, in the Smith¬ 
sonian Report, 1867, p. 42). 
Honor to the memory of Robert Kennicott! 1 
IY SHORT NOTICES OF BENJAMIN D. WALSH AND HOMER F. 
BASSETT, CORRESPONDENTS IN MY WORK ON CYNIPIDAE ; OF 
DR. WILLIAM LE BARON (1814-1876), GENEVA, ILLINOIS ; AND 
OF MR. E. FOREMAN, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
Benjamin D. Walsh was born at Frome, Somerset, Eng¬ 
land, on September 21,1808; he graduated at Trinity College, Cam¬ 
bridge; came to America in 1838, purchased a farm in Illinois, and 
settled afterwards, in 1851, in Rock Island, Ill., where he died on 
November 18, 1869, in consequence of a railway accident due to 
his own imprudence. His wife, whom he had married in England, 
survived him; he left no children. Farming, a lumber business, 
and later house building and ownership, were his successive occu¬ 
pations, and brought him a sufficient competence. In politics he 
was a zealous Radical Republican. He was universally esteemed 
for his high character, and loved for his unusual good spirits. At 
the same time he was in many respects an eccentric. He had paid 
some attention to entomology in his young days, before leaving 
England. But he took up this science again only twelve years 
before his death. The amount of work he accomplished, within 
1 I suppose that a detailed biographical notice about Kennicott was published after 
his decease, although I have not succeeded in finding any among the literature 
accessible to me. My purpose is merely to put on record my personal gratitude to 
him. 
