February, '16] OBITUARY 241 



force was enlarged and his appropriations were gradually increased, 

 he organized and directed one of the largest and most efficient of the 

 divisions of the national entomological service; and this is only another 

 way of saving that he had under his control one of the most important 

 agencies of entomological investigation in the world. 



During the thirty-four years of his service, besides inspiring, train- 

 ing, and assisting many young men, he contributed more than three 

 hundred papers to the literature of his subject; and it is not too much 

 to say that our accurate knowledge of the entomology of the forage 

 and cereal crops, especially of the small grains, is in very large meas- 

 ure the product of his personal work. He was not by any means a 

 narrow specialist, but was even more interested in the larger aspects 

 and the remoter bearings of his problems than in their special details. 

 The subject of the distribution, migration, and diffusion of insects 

 especially engaged his attention; and he encouraged his assistants to 

 work out not only the detailed life-histories of the forms they studied, 

 but their anatomy and even their embryology also. He was never- 

 theless a thoroughly practical entomologist, held in close contact with 

 the soil and the crop by the fact that he had been himself a farmer, and 

 was financially interested in farming all his life. 



As an executive he was a good judge of men and a careful, thorough- 

 going, and persistent manager; and he gradually brought together in 

 his large diAdsion a corps of capable young workers to whose training 

 for their special tasks he gave close and helpful attention. In his 

 relations to them he was critical but kindly, a wise and friendly ad- 

 viser who attached his subordinates to him by bonds of loyalty and 

 personal affection. "He was almost a father to all of us," one of them 

 has lately said, "and was always looking out for our interests." Al- 

 though something of a "fighter" in the better sense of the word, he 

 was never a bitter partisan, and he was especially notable for his 

 unswerving loyalty to those who had in any way helped or be- 

 friended him. 



The high esteem in which he w^as held by his scientific associates is 

 shown by the fact that, although an economic entomologist especially, 

 he was chosen president of the Entomological Society of America at 

 its Columbus meeting only a few days before his death. 



He is survived by his wife, Maria A. [Potter] Webster (to whom 

 he was married at Sandwich, 111., in August, 1870), and by their two^ 

 daughters and three sons. 



Stephen A. Forbes. 



