Obituary Notes. 



355 



Xalional Museum in Rio dc Janeiro, parll\- by Mr. F. D. (Jodin.iu 

 of London, and i)artl\- In- the writer of these lines, who siibsequenth 

 purchased most of the lepidoi)tera, and, at a later date by the 

 Carnegie Museum, which secured most of the vast collection of 

 other insects, which Mr. Smith had made, numbering; a])proximalely 

 thirty thousand species and not far from two hundred thousand 

 specimens. 



In 1886 there appeared in Portuguese from his pen an account 

 of some of his travels, entitled " De Rio de Janeiro a C.uyaba." 

 Mr. F. D. , Godman, whose monumental work, the " Biologia 

 Centrali-Americana," called for an intensive study of the fauna of 

 Mexico, commissioned Mr. Smith to make collections for him in 

 that country, and he labored there during the year 1889. He spent 

 much of his time in the years 1890-1895 in the employment of the 

 \\'est Indian Commission of the Royal Society in making collections 

 in Trinidad and the Windward Islands, and in reporting upon the 

 same. These collections are in the British Museum. During the 

 same years he was actively engaged as one of the staff of writers 

 employed in the preparation of the "Century Dictionary," the 

 "Century Cyclopedia of Names," and "Johnson's Cyclopedia." 

 In these works almost everything relating to South and Central 

 America and the fauna and flora of these lands is from his pen. 



When plans were being formed for the development of the Car- 

 negie Museum, Mr. Smith took occasion, not only in letters, but 

 by personal visits to the writer, to urge the desirability of selecting 

 as one of the major objects of the new institution, a biological 

 survey of South America. While it was not at that time possible 

 to fully accept his proposals, one of the results of his visits to Pitts- 

 burgh, was his employment by the infant museum to act in a 

 curatorial capacity, devoting himself to the formation of collections 

 illustrating the natural resources of the region of which Pittsburgh 

 is the metropolis. Assisted by his wife and various volunteers 

 he made extensive collections representing the flora and fauna of 

 western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. These collections num- 

 ber many tens of thousands of insects, shells, and plants, as well as 

 fishes, reptiles, birds, and small mammalia. When not in the field, 

 he devoted his time to the arrangement of collections which began 

 to rapidly come into the possession of the museum. 





