66 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



The committee appointed at the last meeting to prepare a 

 notice of the late D. H. demons reported as follows : 



Douglas Harrison Clemous was born in southern California, 

 but while he was still an infant his parents moved east, where 

 both died, leaving him to the care of his older sister, whose 

 limited means of support prevented his acquiring more than 

 an elementary education. While still quite small he sought 

 to earn his living as errand or cash boy in various stores in 

 Washington, and even under these trying circumstances 

 showed a very keen interest in nature, especially birds and 

 insects, whenever he could get away from the city streets. 



It was during this period that one of the younger members 

 of this Society made his acquaintance and was struck with the 

 pity of such unusual interest in natural history being smoth- 

 ered from lack of opportunity to develop. It happened at the 

 time that there was great need of a preparator of insects in 

 the National Museum, and through the interest of his new- 

 found friends Clemons was given a temporary appointment 

 there. His unusual keenness in the observation of life his- 

 tories of insects and his natural bend for systematic entomo- 

 logy soon became evident to all with whom he came in con- 

 tact and his work gave universal satisfaction. Dr. Howard 

 took an interest in the boy and sent him to the Gipsy Moth 

 Parasite Laboratory at Melrose Highlands, Massachusetts, 

 where he proved to be of most valuable assistance in the intri- 

 cate observations of the life histories of the imported Tachinid 

 flies. His accuracy and ability in this work is attested to in the 

 bulletin by Prof. C. H. T. Townsend, who was in charge of 

 this branch of the work. 



Returning to Washington in the fall of 1908, Clemons was 

 appointed aid in the Division of Insects of the National 

 Museum, but already in the spring of the following year he 

 showed signs of failing health and in the early summer he 

 broke completely down. In spite of all the efforts made by 

 his Washington friends, the progress of the dreadful disease 

 could not be arrested and after a vain effort to regain his 

 health at a sanatorium in Colorado he died at the home of his 

 sister in Riverside, California, on March 22, 1910. 



Clemons did not know his exact birthday nor birth year, 

 but was not much over twenty-one years old at the time of his 

 death. He obviously could not have accomplished much in 

 actual science, and he left nothing in published form as a 

 record of his numerous observations of insect life; but to the 

 small circle of entomologists with whom he came in contact 

 he proved himself a true lover of the science, a thoroughly 



