( xliii ) 



John Lawrence Leconte was born in New York on the 13th 

 May, 1825,* his father (himself an entomologist) being a Major 

 in the Army of the United States. He was educated at St. Mary's 

 College, Maryland, and in 1846 passed the College of Physicians 

 and Surgeons in New York. In 1852 the family removed to 

 Philadelphia. During the Civil War he entered the Army 

 Medical Corps as Surgeon of Volunteers, and was promoted to 

 the grade of Medical Inspector with the rank of Lieutenant- 

 Colonel, in which capacity he served until after the close of the 

 war in 1865. Latterly he held an appointment in the Mint at 

 Philadelphia. In 1863 he was elected an Honorary Member of 

 this Society. He was President of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science in 1874, and at the time of his 

 death he was President of the American Entomological Society. 

 Some few years ago (1869 — 72) Dr. Leconte paid a long visit to 

 Europe, and was well known to most of our leading Coleopterists. 

 His earliest papers date from 1844, and in his time he charac- 

 terised some 500 genera and 5000 species of North American 

 Coleoptera ; but he was not a mere species-maker or describer, 

 it was as a writer on the classification of the Order that he 

 won his fame. His published papers, nearly two hundred in 

 number, and nearly all on American Coleoptera, are scattered 

 over the publications of the Natural History Societies of Phila- 

 delphia, Boston, and New York, the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, 

 the Smithsonian Institution, the Transactions of the American 

 Entomological Society, and the Canadian Entomologist. A few 

 notes of his will be found in our own 'Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History'; and a paper "On Platypsylliclte, a new Family 

 of Coleoptera" appeared in the Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society of London for 1872 (p. 799). In 1859 he edited the 

 entomological works of Thomas Say ; and but a few months 

 before his death, in conjunction with Dr. Horn, he published a 

 'Classification of the Coleoptera of North America,' being an 

 amplification and completion of the work originally produced in 

 1861 — 2, and which may be taken to exhibit the mature views of 



* This date is said to be doubtful. Dr. Sharp states (Ent. Mo. Mag. xx. 

 192) that Leconte at his death was about sixty-six years of age. But Dr. 

 Horn gives the date as above (' Science,' ii. 783). 



