167 



speaks of our departed friend : " It is not a common-place man that 

 has gone from our roll of active membership, but one who was larger 

 than the ordinary — larger noi only in mental capacity, but also in 

 worthy ambitions, in appreciating the things that are worth living for, 

 and in kindly regard for his fellow-men." 



H. E. 



TOWNEND GLOVER. 



Professor Townend Glover, so long connected with the Government 

 in the capacity of Entomologist, died at the house of his adopted 

 daughter, Mrs. Daniel Hopper, in Baltimore, Sept. 7th, from an attack 

 of apoplexy. His most intimate friends know comparatively little that 

 is exact concerning his early life. He seems to have been born on the 

 ocean near Rio Janeiro, of English parents, as near as we can find out, 

 in the year 18 [3, so that at the time of his death, he had entered on 

 his seventy-first year. From the most trustworthy statements it seems 

 that he was taken to England, while yet a child, and received his edu- 

 cation there and in Germany. He came to this country as a young 

 man, and finally settled at Fishkill, on the Hudson. It was during 

 his residence at Fishkill that he first became connected with the Pat- 

 ent Office, and we find his first recorded work on Entomology in the 

 Agricultural Report for 1854. He subsequently accepted a position 

 in the Maryland Agricultural College as lecturer on Natural History, 

 ;'nd remained there until he was appointed Entomologist to the pres- 

 ent Department of Agriculture in 1862. 



Mr. Glover had many personal peculiarities and one of his humor- 

 ous boasts was that he was born in no country and never named an 

 insect. His early work shows him to have been an excellent observer, 

 and some of his reports are models of careful and painstaking work. 

 This is especially true of his reports on insects aft'ecting the cotton 

 plant in the United States. He was most ready with his pencil, and 

 had a positive genius for modelling fruits and mounting birds. He 

 was the founder of the present museum of the Department of Agri- 

 culture. 



His chief work in Entomology, aside from the numerous annual 

 reports which he prepared as Entomologist to the Department, 

 was the preparation of a large number of copper-plate engravings (287 

 in all,) of insects, with an immense number of collected notes. These 

 plates, especially the earlier ones, are admirable illustrations of most 

 of the commoner insects of the United States, and tl]eir transforma- 

 tions, and it had always been his intention to issue them as a complete 

 work on North American Entomology. They not only represent many 

 original drawings from life, but copies of a great many figures by other 

 authors. Thus many figures from Smith and Abbott, i^oisduval and 

 Leconte and Ratzeburg, are reproduced. In time the same insect 

 often came to be repeated on different plates, and the work evidently 

 grew beyond the author's anticipations when it was conceived. In the 

 preparation of these plates he showed an enthusiasm and an industry 

 almost phenomenal. Some of them have been published in limited 

 editions, as " M.S. Notes from my Journal — Diptera ; '' also with sim- 



