1897.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 535 



information of others. His drawings could scarcely be called 

 artistic, and were often the merest outlines ; but somehow they 

 seemed to show just what it was intended they should, and if not 

 pleasing to the eye, they were decidedly instructive to the mind. 



Mr. Samuel Heushaw of the Boston Society of Natural History 

 has well expressed a general estimate as follows : " I doubt " — he 

 writes — " if there is an entomologist with the same work to his credit, 

 the same in amount and kind, who has left so little to be set aside or 

 corrected, as will be found to be the case with the work of Dr. Horn." 



Dr. Horn was what may be called a " closet naturalist," although 

 with considerable experience in the field. His work was with dead 

 and dry specimens and, while always interested in life histories or 

 what are now termed biologies of insects, these were secondary. The 

 specimens and the facts they represented were the things, always. 



I do not believe he ever cut a section of an insect in his life and 

 certainly never made use of any in his work. He would, therefore, 

 be condemned as unscientific by those who see no value in work not 

 biographic and those who consider that no sound conclusions can be 

 reached unless a specimen has been elaborately prepared, sliced, 

 stained, mounted and then ideally reconstructed. Yet all these are 

 equally studies of nature and each may be scientific or the reverse. 

 We need all the facts from every point of view and to consider one 

 line of work superior or more essential argues the narrowness of the 

 specialist who sees nothing good except as the result of the method 

 followed by himself. Even the " mere species maker " whom it is 

 at present the fashion to heap with contumely has a right to exist, 

 for without him we could not refer intelligently to the creature 

 whose life history is under consideration or whose parafined corpse 

 is undergoing " microtomy." 



Dr. Horn has shown us by his labors that nature and the manner 

 of nature's work can be as intelligently studied in preserved adult 

 specimens as in any other stage or manner ; and if his work is as 

 well done as I believe it has been, the work of students following 

 other paths will simply confirm his conclusions. 



The aim of the scientific student should be to get at the truth, and 

 all methods of reaching that goal are worthy of consideration. This 

 was the conviction of Dr. Horn himself, and I believe he was right. 

 At all events the contributions made by him to Coleopterology give 

 him an indisputable right to rank with the best that are or ever 

 have been workers in this Order. 



