JOHN, E. Le CONTE. 907 
although in both sciences his contributions were always of 
original matter, and therefore of permanent value. 
Two or three years after his receiving military commission 
he was married to a Miss Lawrence, of an old and highly 
respectable New York family. Her early death, in 1825, was 
an irreparable loss; but he took refuge in scientifie work, 
studying more particularly the herpetology and botany of the 
Southern States, where his duties called him, and where he 
was eventually overtaken by that illness which, after several 
years' duration, impelled him to resign his commission, and 
from whieh he did not fully recover until long after his 
fiftieth year. 
From this time until his death at the age of seventy-six, his 
scientifie labors were turned upon the subject of entomology 
mainly, where his great abilities found exercise in original 
work of his own, and in directing and training, in the same 
line of work, his only son, the late John L. Le Conte of Phila- 
delphia, who was, I think, the most eminent of American 
coleopterists. 
His comfortable and hospitable mansion, as he presided 
in it between the years 1840 and 1860, was more or less 
the resort of the ablest scientists of the country, as well as of 
relatives and friends; for Major Le Conte, although a scholar 
and a close and careful stedent, was no recluse, but rather 
fond of the society of both old and young; and, although to 
strangers he sometimes gave the first impression of a little of 
the cold and majestic, all who knew him well were surer of 
nothing than of his kindliness and tenderness of heart. 
In merry moods, I and my young lady companions and 
visitors were not in the least afraid making ourselves obtru- 
sive; dared to drag forth from its old lurking place in an 
otherwise unused wardrobe, the gorgeous relics of his mili- 
tary days; and he condescended to answer our enquiries ; 
telling us that that great military coat, heavily ornate with 
the insignia of office, he had worn for the last time, when he 
had served by appointment as one of the small Commission 
of army officers who received La Fayette, in the name of the 
