MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 365 



A PEN SKETCH OF PROF. C. V. RILEY, FORMERLY STATE 



ENTOMOLOGIST OF MISSOURI. 



♦ 



BY DR. F. W. CODING, RUTLAND, ILL. 



History points to but few instances where men have started out in 

 a strange land, without friends or funds, and in exceptional fields, who 

 afterward attained distinction ; and when such was the case, it was al- 

 ways due to persistent perseverence, unconquerable energy and unflagg- 

 ing enthusiasm. A few such instances might be mentioned, pre-emi- 

 nently that of the subject of this .sketch, Charles Valentine Riley. 



Born in London, England, September i8, 1843, his boyhood was 

 spent in Walton, subsequently attending private schools at Chelsea and 

 Bayswater until eleven years of age, when he entered the College of St. 

 Paul, Dieppe, France. Here he remained three years, and then spent 

 nearly three years more in a private school at Bonn, Prussia. His pas- 

 sion for drawing and painting, and collecting insects early brought him in 

 contact with the late H. W. Ilewitson, and later, with many eminent 

 naturalists at Bonn and Poppelsdorf, his sketches easily carrying off the 

 best prizes, at Dieppe and Bonn. 



The early loss of his father, and the care at school of a younger 

 brother, developed in young Riley a self-reliance and sense of responsi- 

 bility, which gave a practical turn to his views, and convinced him that 

 the classical education he was getting, lacked many elements of utility, 

 and was not the best preparation for active life-work. Acting on this 

 idea, at the age of seventeen, he sailed for New York, where he arrived 

 seven weeks later, with little means, and " a stranger in a strange land." 

 Proceeding westward, he settled on a farm, in Kankakee County, Illinois, 

 with Mr. G. H. Edwards, remaining there four years, and mastering all 

 the details of modern farm work, greatly improving, in many instances, 

 the method then in vogue. His health failing, he went to Chicago, 

 where he was employed for a while as reporter on the Evening Journal^ 

 soon after becoming connected with the Prairie Farmer. Besides a 



