184 John Lor a Cui'tis. [zoe 



initial letters of species will settle itself in time into a matter of 

 convenience, there being no real rule of grammar involved — 

 the Romans as every one knows had only one kind of letters — 

 all capitals. 



Rules relating to the formation of systematic names had per- 

 haps better be only recommendatory. The aspect of the purist 

 in the language of science is one of the most ridiculous things 

 the world has encountered. The Latin of modern science would 

 at its best be a foreign language to Cicero, and the attempt to 

 exclude names not formed according to the best models is 

 especially characteristic of those who, having rather late in life 

 acquired a "little Latin and less Greek," are painfully anxious 

 to advertise the fact. 



JOHN LORA CURTIS. 



John Lora Curtis, the young California araneologist, who died 

 in Oakland on February 19, 1893, was a life-long invalid. He was 

 confined to a wheel-chair for thirteen years, more than half of his 

 short life. He was so weak that even a book was too large a bur- 

 den for his hands. Yet he was a better student and lover of nature 

 than many stronger men. His education was necessarily desul- 

 tory. He began his study of spiders in his sixteenth year, and 

 did his collecting of specimens mostly at second hand, through 

 friends and correspondents. In this way he collected and pre- 

 served more than two hundred species of spiders, almost alto- 

 gether from California. He estimated that, at a reasonably low 

 figure, fifty of these were new to science. 



Lack of funds kept his library small, and he had not been 

 able to secure such works on American spiders as Keyserling's, 

 therefore he was very diffident about offering to publish for new 

 what might prove to be species alreadj^ described. Had his life 

 been spared only a few years longer he surely would have added 

 new forms to the list of described spiders of California. As it is, 

 it remains the duty of some arachnologist to work over the 

 specimens left by him with their accompanying notes. 



Just a few days before his death he had the pleasure of read- 

 ing the proof of his first (and last) published article: A New 



