242 DAVENPORT ACADEJrY OF NATURAT. SCIENCES. 



complete success in the ceaseless struggle in which every bread- 

 winner must engage, are inimical to the slow, cautious, and laborious 

 methods by which alone the bounds of human knowledge may be 

 extended. In our country, and especially in its western portion, 

 there is so strongly pronounced a disposition to ignore all lines of 

 thought and labor save those which tend to immediate pecuniary 

 advantage, that the student of obscure natural phenomena and laws 

 receives more of contempt and suspicion than of encouragement 

 and assistance. There are hence but few liere of such energy and 

 independence as to enable them to stem the current of popular feel- 

 ing, to endure the slights and sneers of unappreciative associates, to 

 rise above the obstacles which they encounter at every step, and to 

 force an unwilling world to acknowledge their worth. 



In our own State the original scientific investigators do not exceed 

 a score in number; we can ill aflord to spare even the least of these; 

 and when, as in this, our first bereavement, one whose early labors 

 gave so brilliant promise of future usefulness, passes from among us, 

 the blow falls with exceptional severity. 



Joseph Duncan Putnam was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, October 

 18th, 1855. His parents, Charles E. Putnam, and Mary Louisa, nee 

 Duncan (daughter of the widely-known Governor .loseph Duncan, of 

 Illinois), both represent notable lines of ancestry which have, both 

 before and since revolutionary days, been distinguished for marked 

 ability and culture, and which have contributed largely to the 

 prestige and renown of the nation. He was thus peculiarly fortu- 

 nate in birth and early surroundings; for he was not only endowed 

 with a rich heritage of natural gifts, but received every advantage 

 that parental tenderness, coupled with intelligence, culture, and 

 wealth, could bestow. Unfortunately these advantages were offset 

 by his inferior physical constitution, and Ijy the ill health from which 

 he suffered throughout nearly the whole of his life. In early boy- 

 hood, indeed, though he exhibited rare capacity for acquiring and 

 assimilating knowledge, he was so constantly ailing that little pro- 

 gress was made in mastering the ordinary rudiments of education 

 until he was ten years of age. Previous to this time, however, he 

 developed a natuial taste for drawing, for observing and collecting, 

 and for methodically arranging his small belongings — traits which 

 were characteristic throughout his life; and at eleven years he began 

 a systematic entomological and general collection. From his tenth 

 to his seventeenth years he attended the public schools of Davenport 

 (which city was his home from a few months after birth to the end 



