March, ipis.] Davis : Charles Edwin Sleight. 47 



CHARLES EDWIN SLEIGHT. 



By Wm. T. Davis, 

 New Brightox, Statex Island, N. Y. 



A real naturalist is generally a born one and the life of Charles Edwin 

 Sleight is only another illustration of the accepted statement. He was born 

 May 26, i860, in Yonkers, Westchester County, N. Y., and started to make 

 natural history collections at an early age. He attended the public schools, 

 and later became an architect, establishing himself in business at Paterson, 

 New -Jersey. In his spare time he took great pleasure in mounting his birds 

 and mammals in natural positions, and was always much interested in the 

 technical part of the treatment and preservation of specimens. Later when 

 he became more of a collector of insects, he devised a cheap and effective 

 type of box for his specimens, a box of the same size for the preservation of 

 alcoholic material in bottles, and a simple plan for mounting small insects 

 on the usual card points. This last consists of an oblong block of wood with 

 two parallel rows of holes about an inch apart. After laying the specimens 

 on their backs in a row on the edge of the block, it is only necessary to apply 

 the freshly glue-tipped point in the usual way and drop the head end of the 

 pin in one of the holes. The insect will thus be held in position while drying, 

 which takes but a few minutes. The Sleight method is a neat and speedy 

 one for mounting small insects, and worthy of being generally followed. 



When the warm days of summer came Mr. Sleight often went camping. 

 As he generally had several buildings to look after, he thought it best not to 

 go too far away from home, and so was content to have his camp in some 

 near retreat where he could reach his business when necessary, and ramble 

 about the woods the remainder of the time. Of recent years he had a regular 

 summer camp on the shores of Lake Hopatcong, N. J., to which many of his 

 entomological friends were invited. This was his chief camp, which was also 

 visited by his family, but on occasions one or both of his sons, and generally 

 a friend, would seek some out-of-the-way place for the mystery or adventure 

 that lingers about a forest pond or a lonely valley. It was through Mr. 

 Sleight's cooperation in loaning tents that the camp of entomologists at Lake- 

 hurst, N. J., in July, igog, was made possible, and it was he who suggested 

 the wagon journey devoted to collecting entomological material in northern 

 New Jersey, which took place in May, 1910. 



Mr. Sleight was interested in entomology in general, but more particularly 

 in the Trichoptera, and he spent much time in rearing a number of species 

 that frequented the brooks and ponds about his home at Ramsey, N. J. An 

 interesting paper of his observations on these insects is to be found in the 

 Journal of the N. Y. Ento. Soc. for March, 19 13. 



He was a member of the Brooklyn and New York entomological societies, 

 and ser^•ed the former as its delegate to the council of the New York Academy 



