25 



California Art & Nature 



26 



THOMAS MEEHAN. 



"Friend after friend departs, 

 Who hath not "eta f -ie d?" 



The State Botanist of Pennsylvania 

 and senior editor of Meehan's Monthly 

 of Germantown, passed to the "bettet 

 land" Nov. 19, irOl, aged 75 years. He 

 was born in London, England, March 

 21, 1826. He once wrote: "My earliesr 

 recollection is of butter-cups in a field 

 of grass tossed into mimic waves by a 

 summer breeze, at three years of age, 

 West London, England." 



His early home was the Isle of 

 Wight. There being no schools there 

 his mother taught him to read and 

 write. The "Book of Common Prayer" 

 was his primer, the Bible and Bunyan's 

 Pilgrim's Progress his readers. After 

 th? family moved 4o Ryde he went to 

 school two years. Eager for learning 

 h3 improved every cppcr.uiity, anl 

 wi h his hard earned pocket money 

 boLght a Latii Dictionary and Gram^ 

 mar, Logic and some other books and 

 s ud'ei nights in his father's green- 

 house. And thus became so proficient 

 that before he was 19 he was elected 

 meber of tha Royal Wernerian Soci- 

 ety cf Edinburg, on account of his or- 

 iginal contributions, cne of them bsirg 

 a paper in which a knowledge of Latin 

 wa? an fcs;e:tal re;usite He also 

 studied Greek the same way, and be- 

 came so fami'iar with French as to 

 read it like English. This young man 

 saw Victoria, the then young queen, 

 more than once, whi'e he was a stu3ent 

 at Kew gardens. Ihe young man went 

 to America, and at the age of 22 en- 

 tered Philadelphia, where for more 

 than ha'f a century he has been one 

 of the leading mi ids of the c'ty, being 

 20 years on the school board and long 

 a member of the city legislature and 

 being the means of gettin'^ up 23 small 

 parks for the benefit of the poor. Ha 

 became respected and beloved by the 

 large community. He was the friend 

 cf the genial Botani-t, Dr. A?a Gray, 

 and spoke of him as "one of the kii»d- 

 est of heart among my friends." Prof. 

 Meehan has been for some years an 

 efficient director of the Philadelphia 

 Academy of Natural Science, the col- 

 lections of which are the th!rl best o -. 

 this continent, to which he was a iib^ 



e al contributor. The professor was 

 often asked to write his biography, but 

 said that at his age he would rathe^ 

 be making history that writing it. He 

 was fond of music and said: "When 1 

 want a change from scie.ice I take my 

 flute and play over some old church 

 tunes. Indeed I sometimes think that 

 when they bury me I would listen with 

 pleasure to "Autumn" if they would 

 sing it over my grave." 



MRS. E. E. ORCUTT. 



HOUSE HOLD PESTS. 



'The Silver Fish' belongs to the low- 

 est order of insects — the Thysanura — 

 is wingless, of very simple structure, 

 worm-like, about 1-3 inch long, taper- 

 ing from near the head to the extrem- 

 ity of its body, and often one of the 

 most troublesome enemies of books, 

 papers, card lables in museums, 

 startched clothing, and more rarely 

 stored food substances. The entire 

 surface of the body is covered with 

 very minute scales like those of a 

 moth. The head carries 2 prominejit 

 antennae, and at the tip of the body 

 are 3 long, bristle-shaped appendages, 

 one pointing directly backward, the 

 other 2 extending out at a consider- 

 able angle; 4 shorter appendages are 

 near; 6 legs spring from the thorax, 

 and, while not very long, they are pow- 

 erful and enable the insect to run with 

 great rapidity. 



Heavily glazed paper is very attrac- 

 tive to this insect, while it often causes 

 wall paper to scale off by its feeding 

 on the starch paste. Pyrethrum fur- 

 nishes the best means of control, 

 wherever it can be applied. C. L. Mar- 

 latt describes and figures it in bulletin 

 No. 4, new series, division of entomol- 

 ogy, U. S. department of agriculture, 

 from which the above notes are main'y 

 taken. Lepisma saccharina L. is the 

 common species of Engla-nd, now prac- 

 tically cosmopolitan. 



EPIDOTE— The United Btates pro- 

 duced $250 worth of this seml-p'^eciGUs 

 stone in 1895. Crystals in masses have 

 been obtained by the writer near the 

 Alamo, and associated with crystals of 

 i»alcite from near the coast south of 

 Santo Tomas, Baja California. 



