1 ‘ S V C 1 1 K 
THE ENTOMOLOGICAL WORK OF DR. A. S. PACKARD. 
BY JOH.V li. S.MITH. SC. D. 
Very few persons realize the extent or appreciate the character and value of 
the entomological work done by Dr. A. S. Packard. Not the systematist purely, 
for he will find much of the work superseded, not accepted, or so generally 
accepted that the original author is no longer recognized; not the entomotomist 
purely, for he will recognize only the specific result obtained and not the bearing 
of that result which Dr. Packard had usually in mind in his anatomical investiga- 
tions; and surely not the modern economic entomologist, for he has now advanced 
far beyond any point ever reached by our author. 
It is only within the past year or two, when it became necessary for me to 
study rather closely an almost complete series of his writings, that I began to 
appreciate the volume and general high standard of Dr. Packard’s works. They 
illustrate a marvelous comprehension of the subject as a whole, a grasp of detail 
in many groups that is astonishing, and a knowledge of the literature that is 
surprising when its scattered condition and the variety of languages in which it 
appeared, is considered. 
Dr. Packard was both an investigator and a teacher; as a teacher in the class 
room or in the laboratory I know nothing of him; as a teacher through books he 
has taught more students than any other American Entomologist. He was not a 
writer of numerous short papers, of hasty criticisms or of single descriptions; 
and yet his publications were many, some of them brief and many critical; but all 
had a purpose — the conveyance of knowledge or the correction of error — the 
correction always made without reflecting upon the honesty or capacity of him who 
made it necessary. Not that Dr. Packard made no errors himself; no one was 
more ready than he to recognize his liability in that direction, and he was 
not ashamed to admit it. Not infrequently he changed his conclusions, and 
when we compare the first edition of the Guide, with the “Text Book,” the full 
extent of the revision of such conclusions becomes apparent. 
.\s a systematist Dr. Packard was interested primarily in the general arrange- 
ment of the Clas.s, and he was among the first if not the first .\merican that ac- 
cepted the necessity of breaking up some of the Linnaean orders and proposed a 
