Sept, 1914-] DoW : ThE GREATEST COLEOPTERIST. 189 



soon repeated. In 1845 ^^ went up the Platte River to Fort Laramie, 

 thence to the foot of- the Rocky Mountains, and back to civiHzation 

 by the Arkansas River. He followed the Santa Fe trail to New 

 Mexico to turn up once more the insects known only from Say's 

 descriptions of his own types. There was little time left for the study 

 of medicine. 



It will be observed that young Dr. Leconte was free from the en- 

 cumbrance placed upon ninety-nine per cent, of mankind — the necessity 

 of earning his own living. The fact is that two lives, those of father 

 and son, are serial, bound together in a single aim in a way almost 

 unprecedented. Somewhere in George Eliot's works there is de- 

 scribed a meeting of an incoming and an outgoing clergyman. The 

 elder observes sadly: "You do not begin where I leave off; you must 

 begin where I began." It was the major's aim that the boy should not 

 begin where the father began. To begin where he left off was not to 

 be hoped for, but many years of hard study could be saved. A man of 

 simple tastes, the major economized that the boy should never lack 

 time and independence. Of scholarly tastes, the major was de- 

 termined that the boy should have the broadest foundation of general 

 knowledge. With military simplicity the major packed the boy's 

 valise and bade him Godspeed on every journey. When the boy sent 

 back 10,000 beetles in alcohol from San Francisco the major receive>l 

 them at home, mounted them, identified all he could, gazed at all under 

 the lens and jotted down the characters which seemed to be im- 

 portant. All to save time when Johnny came marching home, all to 

 lengthen out the working hours of a human span, all that his own 

 career in the science should be extended and glorified by the second 

 generation. 



In 1852 the Lecontes moved to Philadelphia. Thither had come 

 Prof. S. S. Haldeman from Lancaster to the University of Penn- 

 sylvania. They would be nearer to Dr. Friederich E. Melsheimer, 

 who had become president of the Entomological Society of Penn- 

 sylvania, formed in 1842. The Melsheimer checklist was to be edited 

 and brought to date for the Smithsonian, for which labor of love 

 Haldeman and Leconte had volunteered. There the meetings of the 

 Academy of Sciences grew in numerical strength and dignity. The 

 Entomological Society was formed in 1859 by Cresson, Bland and 

 Ridings. There the major attended the meetings, a little bent from 



