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190 Journal New York Entomological Society. t^'°'- >^>^n. 



his earlier carriage, one hand bearing heavily on his cane, the other 

 on the shoulder of his boy. Auguste Salle visited them in June, 1854, 

 at their house, 321 West Locust St., and was introduced to " le 

 respectable pere," then just past seventy. He found there Mots- 

 chulsky, who had been working for three weeks over identifications, 

 especially of beetles taken on his southern tour. The Leconte col- 

 lection had then about 7,000 species, arranged, as Salle remarks, with 

 great care. In the afternoon the quartet walked, first to the Academy 

 of Sciences nearby, at the corner of Broad and Greoge Sts., then 

 through Fairmount Park. In Philadelphia the major reported 

 " adsum " in 1 861 and rendered his final accounting. Born in 1784. 



Are the pictures of this career to be drawn with more detail? Is 

 it worth while to follow the journeys of the younger man, to learn 

 whom and what he met? Would it be of interest to listen to some 

 letter from Leconte," to Zimmermann in South Carolina, Harris in 

 Cambridge. Schaum in New Jersey, Haldeman in Philadelphia, or 

 Adams in Vermont, telling about a glorious vacation of four weeks on 

 Mt. Yona,- Georgia ? Would we like to learn more than the bare 

 facts of the ten years when young Leconte was hurrying from 

 Superior to Florida, from Nova Scotia to San Diego, from Coney 

 Island to South Orange, losing 20,000 specimens in the San Fran- 

 cisco fire of 1852, robbed of his horses by the Indians near the Gila 

 River and having to walk to camp thirty miles over the desert, con- 

 stantly amassing the actual material from which he constituted his 

 classification? What of the collectors who fell under the spell of 

 his influence and gave to him their whole collections, types and 

 all? There are many more of them than appear in the checklist. Of 

 any man who in any ])ursuit bccnmcs the leading autliority the chief 

 biographical data cannot but be well known. Yet the principal events 

 of Lcconte's life have never been recorded in any one place. Nothing 

 larger than a .sketch of him exists. There is an able essay on his 

 genealogy and a careful estimate of his work compared with that of 

 Dr. Horn, rather favoring the latter. The best collection of facts is 

 in the six-page necrological notice by Salle in the .Ainials of the Ento- 

 ni()lf)gical Society of h>ance. It is remarkable that in all Leconte's 

 published papers he fails to mention being in any place at any date. 

 No personal element whatever, the word " I " almost omitted. There 



- Datrisiis ioiuic Lie. comnu'moratfS the spot. 



