656 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



mainly upon a single family, Histeridae. He not only amassed a consid- 

 erable collection, but he left behind, as already stated, a most extensive 

 series of water-color illustrations of our native insects and plants (as well 

 as of reptiles and other vertebrates) made with his own hands. He was 

 in the habit of visiting his brother in Georgia every winter, up to a short 

 time before his death, which occurred at Philadelphia, November 21, 1860. 

 According to Professor Le Conte Stevens's family records. Major Le Conte 

 was a somewhat corpulent man, "about five feet six inches in height, with 

 rather dark complexion, blue eyes and aquiline nose. In disposition he 

 was usually sociable and sufficiently communicative, but occasionally reti- 

 cent and secluded, strong in his affections and aversions, and much beloved 

 by his relatives whom he visited in Georgia. . . . For a number of years 

 he was a member of the Episcopal Church, but he subsequently became 

 a Roman Catholic, and in this faith he died." The portrait which we 

 publish in facsimile bears out this description ; it is carefully copied from 

 an oil miniature in the possession of the family, by the kind permission of 

 the widow of the late Dr. John L. Le Conte, to whom, also, I am in- 

 debted for the autograph which accompanies it. 



The third person whose life will here be briefly sketched was an inhab- 

 itant of New England, and on account of his remarkable labors became 

 the pioneer of economic entomology in this country. It was entirely 

 through his familiarity with the early stages of insects that he gained this 

 preeminence, and his work, the publication of which (excepting in the 

 paltry emolument which it brought to its author) reflects great credit 

 upon the state of Massachusetts, still remains, and will long remain an 

 acknowledged classic. 



Thaddeus William Harris was born in Dorchester, Mass., November 

 12, 1795, and died January 16, 1856 at Cambridge. He was therefore 

 but a few years the junior of Major Le Conte. His father was at first 

 librarian of Harvard College, afterwards a clergyman in the town where 

 his son was born ; while his son, beginning his career as a physician, 

 quitted it in 1831 for the librarianship which his father had held before 

 him. But it was during his residence at Milton as a country physician that 

 the greater part of his field observations were made. The subsequent 

 years were largely employed in working up the material then obtained, 

 which, although working in one of the largest libraries of the time, he 

 was obliged to do under circumstances of the utmost difficulty. Not only 

 were works that he required not procurable, excepting on rare occasions, 

 but the solitariness of his position is clearly indicated in a letter written 

 to Mr. Doubleday of England, in which he congratulates the latter that he is 

 not "compelled to pursue science as it were by stealth, and to feel all the 

 time, while so employed, that you are exposing yourself, if discovered, to 



