DU. JOHN L. LECONTE. XI 



requirctl oi' the anouialics of distriljution to wliicli lie lias calli'd atten- 

 tion. For tliis wo must await tlio results whicli arc fortlieoniini^. Mean- 

 while the su<>-ji'estions nuule in this address, and the additions to them in 

 his paper on Rocky IMountain Coleoptera in the • Bulletin of Hayden's 

 Survey" in 187H, in which he expressed his belief that by careful studie^s 

 of insect faunas in their totalities we shall he able to obtain a " somewhat 

 definite information of the sequence, extent and effect of geolojiical 

 changes in the more recent periods," are j)ertinent, and. we may hope, 

 will prove fruitful. 



These contributions to zoo-geography, to whicli we have first called at- 

 tention, were after all but accessories to his main work, the overflow of a 

 mind charged with resources. Though in a very subordinate and im- 

 perfect way, the key-note of his after work may be said to have been 

 struck in his very first paper, in which he concentrated his attention upon 

 a single group ; and passing over his next, which is confined to miscella- 

 neous descriptions, we come at once U2)on synopses and monographs of 

 greater or less extent and value. It is not our purpose here to specially 

 praise tliis early work, which no one knew better than he, or more freely 

 acknowledged, was marked by crudity and inexperience ; but we wish to 

 call attention to the point that at the very outset of his career he was 

 not carried away by the wealth of material at his hand into random pub- 

 lication of miscellaneous material, after the fashion of the day, but com- 

 prehended with scholarly instinct the far higher worth of symmetrical and 

 co-ordinated work and the training ol' his analytical powers. There was, 

 therefore, from the first, an orderly method in his work which shows 

 itself even in his incomplete essays ; and this was all the more remarkable 

 from the fact, which cannot be too forcibly insisted upon, that previous 

 to 1848, when his first so-called monograph appeared, there liad been 

 published by xVmerican entomologists three papers only of this character, 

 all others having been mere catalogues or miscellaneous descriptions ; one 

 of these monographs was by Say, on Cicindelidas, published in 1817; 

 the second by Major LeContc, in 1845, on Histeridae; and the third by 

 Ilaldeman, as late as 1847, on the longicorn Coleoptera. LeConte 

 therefore, is seen to cut himself loose from the ordinary practise of his 

 predecessors, and at once in this as in his geographical work to apply 

 himself independently to the problems before him. How industrious he 

 has been in this direction, and whatf an influence he has exerted on the 

 study of Entomology in this country may be recognized by the mere 

 statement (hat upwards of sixty monographic essays, some of them ex- 



