MEMOIR. Xvii 



department from February 16, 1837, till the appointment of 

 a permanent professor in 1842. I was fortunate enough to 

 be among his pupils. There were exercises twice a week, 

 which included recitations in " Smellie's Philosophy of Nat- 

 ural History," with occasional elucidations and familiar lec- 

 tures by Dr. Harris. There were also special lectures on 

 Botany. This was the only foothold which Natural History 

 had then secured in what we hopefully called the " univer- 

 sity." Even these scanty lessons were, if I rightly remember, 

 a voluntary affair; we had no "marks" for attendance, and 

 no demerits for absence, and they were thus to a merely 

 ambitious student a waste of time, so far as college rank 

 was concerned. Still they proved so interesting that Dr. 

 Harris formed, in addition, a private class in entomology, to 

 which I also belonged. It included about a dozen young men 

 from different college classes, who met on one evening of 

 every week at the room where our teacher kept his cabinet, 

 in Massachusetts Hall. These were very delightful exercises, 

 according to my recollection, though we never got beyond 

 the Coleoptera. Dr. Harris was so simple and eager, his 

 tall, spare form and thin face took on such a glow and 

 freshness, he dwelt so lovingly on antennas and tarsi, and 

 handled so fondly his little insect-martyrs, that it was 

 enough to make one love this study for life, beyond all 

 branches of Natural Science, and I am sure that it had that 

 effect on me. 



As one fruit of these lessons, several of us undertook dur- 

 ing the following year to arrange for the Harvard Natural 

 History Society its collection of insects, then very much 

 augmented, and only partially arranged by my predecessor 



OCCAS. PAPERS B. S. N. H. — I. B 



