58 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



summer, he employed William Trelease to conduct certain investi- 

 gations connected with cotton insects, mostly in the field. 



During the first year Comstock prepared his well known Report 

 on Cotton Insects, published as an independent volume by the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. In that winter he went to Florida and became 

 interested in the insect enemies of Citrus trees, especially scale insects ; 

 and then began his work on this important group which culminated 

 in his Report for the year 1880 in which he published a monographic 

 treatment of the scale insects of the United States, basing his classi- 

 fication upon that recently published by Signoret of Paris. This 

 scale insect paper of Comstock's remained standard for a long time, 

 and started the investigation of this group that speedily became 

 world-wide. His two reix)rts, aside from the scale insect paper, were 

 of a character similar to those of Riley and were sound and sugges- 

 tive, containing a great deal of material of biological importance and 

 also containing numerous practical suggestions. ' 



At the time when Comstock came to Washington he thought that 

 he was threatened with tuberculosis. At all events he was very 

 nervous and in poor health. Occasionally after coughing, his hand- 

 kerchief would be stained with blood. His salary was small (only 

 two thousand dollars), and his wife drew a salary of twelve hun- 

 dred dollars. They were building a small house in Ithaca, and sent 

 home as much money as possible to meet necessary payments. The 

 Comstocks, Trelease, and I lived on the most intimate terms. As 

 pay day would approach I would usually have to pawn my watch in 

 order to buy theatre tickets for the four of us. But we spent little 

 time in such amusements. We were all young (it is surprising now to 

 think how young we were!). Trelease and I were 22, Mrs. Comstock 

 was 25, and Comstock was only 30. We were filled with the enthu- 

 siasm of youth, worked hard and were delighted with the inter- 

 esting and important discoveries we made. 



Professor Comstock seemed to take it for granted that the policy 

 adopted by Riley in the matter of credits was the proper one. In 

 fact, it was rather generally understood at that time that the chief 

 had the right to sign articles written by his assistants. I thought 

 nothing of it then, but of late years I have been wondering that 

 such an unfortunate policy should have held among scientific men. 



Comstock was a very fair and very honest man, as his subsequent 

 career has shown. 



With the change of administration in March, 1881, the newly 

 appointed Commissioner of Agriculture, George B. Loring, was 

 overwhelmed with petitions from all sorts of organizations to rein- 



