1897.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 75 



JOHN L. CURTIS. 



By Vernon L. Kellocg, Stanford University, Cal. 



Elsewhere in this number of the News there is published, 

 under the name of John L. Curtis, a description of a new spider 

 and a brief abstract of some observations on the habits of this 

 spider. The name of Mr. Curtis is not familiar to entomologists. 

 I wish that some particulars of the patient, brave life of this 

 promising student of entomology might be known to those whose 

 attention may be arrested by the unknown name. 



John Curtis, of Oakland, Cal., died at twenty-five. During 

 the twelve years preceding his death his waking hours were 

 passed in a wheeled chair. A paralytic affliction deprived him of 

 the use of the muscles of body and legs and arms, except those 

 of the wrists and hands. His consolation and delight were found 

 in the study of natural history. After caring for and watching a 

 solitary spider kept in confinement for several years, he began 

 with earnest zeal the careful study of spiders. His friends sent 

 them to him in such numbers, that at times, he had sixty or 

 seventy species under observation. Wheeled by a companion 

 along hedge- rows, he observed them in their natural homes and 

 collected them. After three years of delighting, absorbing study, 

 his eyes so failed him that he was limited, during two years, to 

 one-half hour a day to microscopic or minute examination. In 

 the last two years of his life with health failing constantly, he de- 

 voted himself exclusively to the observation of the new spider 

 described elsewhere in the News. He devised ingenious methods 

 of housing and feeding and watering his spiders. He made ex- 

 haustive observations of their every habit, and recorded all in 

 notes and drawings. Untrained, inert, helpless, tortured, his 

 patient, enthusiastic devotion to his studies have enabled him to 

 add something to our knowledge of living things and to find for 

 himself happiness in the midst of affliction. 



Pictures for the album of the American Entomological Society, have 

 been received from Professors C. P. Gillette, of Fort Collins, Col., Wm. 

 Osburn, of Nashville, Tenn , and Wm. R. Reinick, Phila. 



The last number of the "Transactions" of American Entomological 

 Society (No. 4. of vol. x.xiii), contains a " Revision of the Genera and 

 Species of Ceutorhynchini inhabiting North America, by Wm. G. Dietz, 

 M.D. '■ See notice on cover of this number. 



