34 
PSYCHE 
[.■Vi.iil 
system of his own as a substitute. Some of his suggestions met with approval, 
others did not; but in all instances there was at least a plausible case and some 
actual characters to maintain it. The discussion was always informing, if not al- 
ways convincing. 
In almost every order Dr. Packard did some systematic work or discussed 
some point in classification: in the Lepidoptera he produced the only comprehen- 
sive illustrated revision of any family of considerable extent that has yet appeared 
in the United States. The Monograph of the Geometridae is as complete as it 
was possible to make it at the time. Material was secured from all available 
sources, all the literature was collated and each species was as completely made 
known as the conditions permitted. But it was not only a species mill: the 
structure of the insects was elucidated, their relationships were discussed and nu- 
merous figures illustrate the discussion. As a piece of systematic work the mon- 
ograph has its faults; we see them now because of added knowledge and mater- 
ial: — the classification has been largely superseded; but that is the fate of all 
classifications: there were errors of synonymy of association and of many other 
divers characters; they have been corrected and the work still stands, useful as 
ever as a record of facts and as an illustration of the stage of knowledge at the 
time it was written. 
Dr. Packard studied the philosophy of individual insect development from 
the very beginning as a necessary preliminary to the discussion of the develop- 
ment of the class; hence we find that he was as much at home in ontogeny as in 
phylogeny, and nowhere is that better illustrated than in the Text ESook of Ento- 
mology, published by the MacMillan Company in i8g8. There is scarcely a topic 
in that Book to which there is not some original contribution or some reference 
which indicates that there was actual knowledge and not mere quotation. And 
this brings up again the wide familiarity with the literature on insect structures 
and development; most of it printed in foreign countries or Journals, and such 
of it as is American, scattered in Proceedings, Transactions and Journals of the 
most diverse kinds. In bringing together and systematizing this mass of material 
Dr. Packard has rendered a service to Entomological Science which Entomolo- 
gists have hardly, as yet appreciated. Some of his conclusions are disputed and 
may be erroneous; but the facts are given and if the expressed convictions are 
formed on insufficient evidence, time will enable us to make the corrections. 
In the line of economic work Dr. Packard was for a time associated with Drs. 
C. V. Riley and Cyrus Thomas on the Emtomological Commission. He contrib- 
uted to nearly all the reports; but less to the strictly economic subject than to a 
discussion of principles and to some work on structural characters which may or 
