384 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 3 



office. In all his seven years' service he received nothing from the 

 state treasury except liis salary, and had no facilities for his work ex- 

 cept those which he provided for himself and at his own expense. His 

 official reports are consequently largely given to systematic articles, 

 to resumes of pertinent matter already published, and to special ar- 

 ticles based on his personal observations and those of his assistants. 

 Precise experimental work, or systematic field operations of any sort, 

 were beyond his reach. His principal assistants. Prof. G. H. French, 

 Mr. D. W. Coquillett, and Miss Emily A. Smith, were engaged to en- 

 able him to share in the work of the United States Entomological 

 Commission, appointed in consequence of destructive outbreaks of 

 the western locust. 



Among the varied interests to which the versatile and active mind of 

 Doctor Thomas was devoted in turn the study of ethnology came to 

 dominate, and finally led him to abandon entomology and to recom- 

 mence his scientific work in a new field at an age when many a man 

 would have been thinking of bringing his career to a conclusion. 



Doctor Thomas was twice married, his first wife being Dorothy 

 Adeline Logan, a sister of Gen. John A. Logan, and his second, Viola 

 L. Davis of Youngstown, Pa. Mrs. Thomas and three daughters sur- 

 vive him. S. A. F. 



JAMES ALEXANDER WEST 



Mr. James Alexander West, an assistant to the state entomologist of 

 Illinois, died of tuberculosis April 17, 1910, at Ottawa, Illinois, in the 

 thirty-fourth year of his age. Mr. West was educated at the Illinois 

 Wesleyan University, receiving his bachelor's degree there in 1889 

 and his master's degree in 190-1. After a theological course in the 

 Northwestern and Boston universities he preached for two years, and 

 then returned to scientific work in the state entomologist's office and 

 in the University of Illinois, serving as entomological assistant and 

 chief horticultural inspector, and taking at the same time a graduate 

 course in entomology, for which he would have received his doctor's de- 

 gree at the commencement of 1910 except for the failure of his health 

 last September. Mr. West was a painstaking, thorough and accurate 

 student of entomology, and a faithful, loyal and unselfish gentleman. 

 He was a clear writer, and an unusually acceptable speaker to general 

 audiences. He made friends easily, was highly regarded by his ento- 

 mological associates, and was rapidly becoming widely and favorably 

 known throughout his state. Although at the very beginning of his 

 scientific career he had already won sufficient recognition and appreci- 

 ation to bring him last year an appointment as head of the department 

 of entomology in an important state university and agricultural ex- 



