THREE EARLY AMERICAN NATURALISTS. 657 



the ridicule, perhaps, at least to the contempt, of those who cannot per- 

 ceive in such pursuits any practical and useful results." The accuracy 

 and care with which his observations were made are revealed by his ample 

 note-books, now in the possession of the Boston Society of Natural His- 

 tory, and in their elaboration in his classic work upon the insects of New 

 England injurious to vegetation. This work, which forms his principal 

 claim to our attention, has passed three editions. It was prepared under 

 appointment as Commissioner of the State of Massachusetts ; but all that 

 he ever received from the state for this immense labor was one hundred 

 and seventy-five dollars. As will be seen in the life published by Colonel 

 Higginson, prefixed to the volume of his Entomological Correspondence, 

 Harris had formed an idea of publishing a local insect fauna which should 

 include only the common species of the vicinity of Boston. This was 

 done on the prompting of many friends, and many fragments of different 

 parts of it are extant in the notes and manuscript preser\ed carefully by 

 the Natural History Society. Faunula Bostoniensis was the title he had 

 intended for it, and among the more complete fragments was one which 

 embraced all the butterflies of the vicinity of Boston known to him. 

 This fragment, on the publication subsequent to his death, of the third 

 edition of his treatise on New England insects, I urged should be incor- 

 porated into this work, as he had himself previously attempted to do, 

 and be accompanied by illustrations of the principal forms ; this w^as 

 done,* and further notes upon the early stages of butterflies will be found 

 covering a dozen pages of the appendix to his "Entomological corres- 

 pondence." This was the first tolerably complete descriptive list of the 

 butterflies of any district in North America ever attempted. Doubtless 

 the notes upon the early stages would have been very much more exten- 

 sive, had not the duties of his position in the library of the University 

 almost absolutely prevented any jjroper attention to field work. The very 

 existence of his cabinet, w'ith the vigilant care wdiich must be taken for 

 its protection from insect pests, in the open drawers w^hich alone his 

 straightened circumstances allowed him,f must have consumed every 

 moment that he could spare from his official duties. But the labors which 

 he undertook and the amount he accomplished under such disadvantages 

 have been the foundation stones of entomological science in this coun- 

 try. Painstaking and laborious to the last degree in all he under- 

 took, his accuracy has never been questioned and his principal w^ork with 

 its simple, direct style can never be superseded. He was the Gilbert 

 AVhite of New England. A tall, spare man, subject, at least in latter life, 

 to nervous headaches, his face showed somewhat the mark of physical 

 fatigue. But the portrait which accompanies his "Entomological corres- 

 pondence," and which through the kindness of the Natural History Society 



*They are republished iu this work. fHe had a family of twelve children. 



83 



