86 SAMUEL HUBBARD SCUDDER— MAYOR. 



the work progressed. An amusing instance of this sort is his description of Trichiulus, which 

 he mistook for part of the hairy leg of a fossil centipede, but later, upon discovering that the 

 specimen was more probably part of a fern leaf, he told his friends that it should be called 

 "Tricky" ulus. 



His work upon fossil insects was of the pioneer sort and thus much of it had perforce to be 

 accomplished in haste; yet few naturalists who have been obliged to study under these adverse 

 conditions have done as well as did Scudder. Mistakes must mar the pages of all leaders of 

 science, and can be avoided only by the cardinal sin of doing nothing. 



An excellent feature of Scudder's work upon fossil insects is the frequency of figures in his 

 papers, which were provided despite the fact that he himself was unable to draw. 



He believed the relationship between the paleozoic and the quaternary insects to be 

 more remote than is now conceded to be the case; but withal he laid the foundation of the 

 world's knowledge of American fossil insects and future work must be erected upon the structure 

 resulting from his tireless labor and his genius for classification. 



A notable set of useful publications are represented by his lists and catalogues, the most 

 important being a catalogue of scientific serials of all countries from 1633 to 1876, and his 

 well-known and widely used Nomenclator Zoologicus, first published in 1882 and 1884 and 

 giving a list of generic names used in zoology. 



He seemed to have but little desire to conduct experiments, nor was he much interested 

 in economic entomology, and as a breeder of insect larvae he was surpassed by Edwards and 

 others, but in the accurate systematic recording of minute detail of external structure he had 

 no peer in his time nor has any entomologist ever attained to his excellence in this respect. 

 Deeply interested as he was in butterflies, he seemed to have almost an aversion to moths. 



A biographical notice of Scudder, giving portrait and written by Prof. C. E. Fay, appears 

 in Appalachia, volume 12, pages 276-279, 1911. Also in 1911, T. D. A. Cockerell published 

 in Science, volume 34, pages 338-342, an interesting commentary upon Scudder's scientific 

 labors, and a series of papers of somewhat similar purport were published in Psyche, volume 18, 

 1911, pages 175-192, the authors being J. S. Kingsley, W. L. W. Field, T. D. A. Cockerell, and Albert 

 P. Morse. Biographical notices also appeared in the Canadian Entomologist, the Entomological 

 News, and in the Harvard Graduate's Magazine. 



In 1879 Dr. George Dimmock published a pamphlet upon "The Writings of Samuel 

 Hubbard Scudder," in which he records 311 publications with brief reviews of the contents of 

 each paper, and of references to it by other authors. Dr. Dimmock has kindly permitted me 

 to make full use of this valuable list. In addition Dr. Samuel Henshaw permitted me to inspect 

 Scudder's personal notebook, now deposited in the library of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology at Cambridge, in which he records and numbers each of his papers as it appeared, the 

 last entry being upon Lepidoptera and numbered 791. The list of papers herewith published is 

 derived from these sources. 



It is a pleasure to acknowledge my appreciation of the kindly interest and aid in the 

 preparation of this biography shown by Miss Blatchford, Mrs. Horace Elisha Scudder, and 

 other members of the family. 



