PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. X, pp. 187-248. December 24, 1908. 



NOTICES OF DECEASED MEMBERS. 



William Harris Ashmead. 

 1855-1908. 



William Harris Ashmead, Assistant Curator Division of 

 Insects, United States National Museum, one of the foremost 

 American workers in systematic entomology, died in Washing- 

 ton October 17, 1908, after a lingering illness. Although his 

 death had been expected for some months, owing to the character 

 of the malady that laid him low, it was none the less a great 

 shock to his wide circle of friends among the scientific com- 

 munity of Washington and to the members of the Washington 

 Academy of Sciences, of which he was a charter member, and 

 of which he had been on several occasions Vice-President from 

 the Entomological Society of Washington. 



Doctor Ashmead was born in Philadelphia September 19, 

 1855. He was the son of Captain Albert Ashmead and Eliza- 

 beth (Graham) Ashmead, and came of fine old colonial ancestry 

 on both sides. He was educated in the private and public 

 schools of Philadelphia, and early in life entered the publishing 

 house of J. B. Lippincott Company, of that city. Some years 

 later he went to Jacksonville, Fla., and with his brother 

 established a printing house for the publication of agricultural 

 books and other matter. He founded an agricultural weekly, 

 and a daily entitled The Florida Dispatch. He edited the 

 scientific department of the weekly, devoting himself chiefly to 



Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., December, 190S. 187 



