IV A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF 



self-taught. I believe that his close application to study from boy- 

 hood on through life was very detrimental to his (not overly robust) 

 health, but he loved study and research and seemed to be ever grasp- 

 ing for something new, and as a boy, while the sports of boyhood 

 attracted others, he was experimenting or studying, taxing both 

 brain and body.' 



No inherited taste for natural sciences is known to exist in Horn's 

 case. His sister ' has no idea, whatever, what prompted his scien- 

 tific turn — my impression is that it was innate.' Near the close of 

 his life, on March 28th, 1895, in announcing, to tlie Entomological 

 Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the 

 death of Dr. W. S. W. Ruschenberger, he ' reviewed the early work 

 of the latter, principally the issuing of a science primer, which the 

 speaker had known to be the direct means of interesting more than 

 one person in the study of natural history ; in fact, gave the speaker 

 his first insight into Entomology.'* This probably refers to a com- 

 pilation l>y Ruschenberger entitled, " Elements of Natural History, 

 embracing Zoology, Botany and Geology," published at Philadelphia 

 in 1850. 



Horn's work in Zoology began while he was yet a student in the 

 Medical School, and like that of his contemporaries Cope, Harrison 

 Allen, H. C. Wood and others, took its visible origin from the Acad- 

 emy of Natural Sciences of his native city. Owing probably to the 

 influence of'his friend, William M. Gabb, later State Paleontologist 

 of California, his attention was directed at first to the Cieleuterates 

 and the Bryozoa. His first scientific paper, " Descriptions of three 

 new species of Gorgonidse, in the collection of the Academy," pre- 

 sented at its meeting of June 19th, 1860, and published on page 

 233 of the Proceedings for that year, occupies hardly more than 

 half a page. In " Descriptions of new Cretaceous Corals from New 

 Jersey" by Wm. M. Gabb and Geo. H. Horn, page 366 of the same, 

 hardly one page long, seven new species are characterized. Then 

 followed "On Milne-Edwards' Synonymy of Xiphigorgia setacea" p. 

 367-368, and " Description of new Corals in the Museum of the 

 Academy" p. 435 (five new species), presented October 2d, 1860. 

 A "Monograph of the Fossil Polyzoa of the Secondary and Ter- 

 tiary Formations of North America" by Wm. M. Gabb and G. H. 

 Horn, M.D., published in the Journal of the Academy, volume v, 

 part ii, pages 111-179, and dated July, 1862, apparently terminates 

 Horn's work on the lower Invertebrates. 



•• Entomological News," vi, p. 166. 



