300 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



" demoralization " or " drunkenness." She embodied her 

 conclusions in a chapter of one of her books about to be 

 published in 1875. Professor Gray wished to dissuade her 

 from the publication of these statements, saying : " You 

 know none of the botanists agree with you." " I cannot 

 help it," she replied. " It must go in, for I have seen it for 

 myself, and I know it is so." And now, after nearly twenty 

 years, her statements and discoveries in this especial line are 

 corroborated by the botanists of to-day, and described in 

 words almost identical with her own, written so many 

 years ago. 



Her long continued and productive studies of spiders, 

 ants, and other insects and of birds, are scarcely less 

 important in their results, as is shown by her valuable con- 

 tributions to periodicals and the annals of scientific societies 

 throughout a period of over twenty-five years. 



Although Mrs. Treat's name is too closely connected 

 with imperishable work to be forgotten, and is commemo- 

 rated in the nomenclature of various plants and insects 

 which have either been named in her honor by the compli- 

 ment of scientific men, or because their discovery was 

 accredited to her, yet it will ever be most honored by those 

 who have known her personally in more intimate relation- 

 ship. Her most prominent characteristic is a modesty so 

 shrinking as to make any public recognition of her services 

 painful to her, while her joyous enthusiasm for her chosen 

 life-work is so great and so contagious that her home is 

 always a centre of attraction, where are welcomed all who 

 care to learn even the alphabet of her beloved book of 

 nature, and where she dispenses the bounty of her gifts and 



