198 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



Conte, was a highly esteemed physician in the lower part of Ne?y 

 Jersey, and married Valeria, a daughter of John Fatton of Shrew- 

 bury, among who^e numerous descendants may be counted some of our 

 most eminent citizens. From an early age his two sons, John Le- 

 Conte and his brother Louis, showed a great love for Natural Histo- 

 ry and the observation of animals and plants. As young men they 

 spent several years in Georgia, where they cultivated their father's 

 plantation and occupied their leisure in the pursuit of science. 

 Here it was that they established a botanical garden, mentioned ' 

 frequently by the earlier travelers in the United States. This love 

 of Nature and the observation of its phenomena has pervaded al- 

 most all the members of the LeConte family. About the year 

 1817, John LeConte entered the army of the United States as Cap- 

 tain of Topographical Engineers, and after serving ten years re- 

 ceived the customary brevet as Major: but finding his health shat- 

 tered by exposure during an exploration ot the St. Johns River in 

 Florida, undertaken in the line of his duty, he made a journey to 

 Paris in 1827, where he formed the acquaintance of many of the 

 most eminent men of science there, and with whom he subse- 

 quently kept up a correspondence. In 1832 or 1833 he resigned 

 nis commission in the army, and lived the retired life of an invalid 

 in New York, until 1852. when he moved to Philadelphia. 



His contributions to botanical and zoological science were 

 published mostly in the Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History 

 of New York, and in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia from L8S2 to 1S6i>. His extensive and 

 valuable herbarium, which had been carefully reviewed by the 

 older botanists of the country, was presented to the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1852, and was followed shortly 

 after his death by a large collection of fresh water mollusca of the 

 United States, containing many original specimens of species first 

 observed by him. He was a most untiring student and left much 

 manuscript, the usefulness of which has been superseded by subse- 

 quent research, and likewise many thousand water-color drawings 

 of insects of various orders, which his son has had mounted in al- 

 bums suitable for inspection. 



No separate botanical work bears his name as author, nor any 

 in zoology that we know of, except one on American Lepidoptera, 

 published in connection with M. Boisduval. But the Royal Soci- 

 ety's Catalogue ot Scientific papers records the title and place and 

 date of publication of thirty-five ot them, eleven of which are bo- 

 tanical. Several of these are monographs. The earliest, on the 

 [T. S. species of Puspalnin, was published in the year 1820; three 

 others, namely, those on rtrieidnriti, Qmiialti, and Jhiellki, all in 

 1824; those on Tillandsia and on Viola in 1826; that on Panvrti- 

 than in 1828. He was a keen but leisurely observer and investiga- 

 tor, and still more leisurely writer. He was a man of very refined 



