56 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



genius for illustration and undoubtedly a genius for observation and 

 study. It was an enormous advantage for him to be associated with 

 Walsh, and it is to his credit that he took advantage of this associa- 

 tion, that he admired Walsh excessively, and that he adopted, in 

 so far as he could, his ideas and his way of thinking, and also, to a 

 certain extent, his way of writing. In those days he must have been 

 a tremendous worker, and he must have been filled with enthusiasm. 

 If my mere statement fails to convince, a reading of either one of 

 the two volumes of The American Entomologist will support me 

 fully. 



One does not wonder at the impression Walsh made on Riley. 

 Contrast the education and the temperaments of the two men, and 

 their relative ages. Walsh was a man of the highest education that 

 England could give him ; he had a keen mind, and was a master of 

 style. He had a sense of humor denied (according to American 

 tradition) to most Englishmen. It is no wonder that the young, 

 impressionable Riley should have formed one of those great enthu- 

 siasms of youth for such a character, and it is perhaps no wonder 

 that the inspiration of this collaboration went a long way to make 

 him the strong entomologist that he undoubtedly was. 



Judged by his work alone, Riley was a great man, and I think that 

 the small world of applied entomology acknowledges this as it 

 should. 



I think that Riley's chief achievements may be summarized as 

 follows : 



(i) His Missouri Reports were quite different from anything of 

 the kind that had been published before. They were sound, based 

 for the most part on study and observation ; they were illustrated by 

 the most admirable woodcuts of insects that had ever been published 

 in this country,' and they were printed in larger type with more 

 attention to form than any previous entomological reports. These 

 reports alone gave him great prominence. 



(2) He was largely responsible for the founding of the United 

 States Entomological Commission, and thus for the first broad 

 national investigation of several insect plagues. 



(3) He was the first entomologist of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture to start the I'ederal organization that has grown 

 to such great size and that has done so much important work. 



(4) His investigations in connection with the grapevine Phylloxera 

 were of the utmost assistance to Europe and helped greatly to bring 

 about the control of this dangerous pest. 



' They were drawn on the wood by Riley liimself. 



