Oct., 'o6] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 27 1 



Sacken donated all his own material to the same institution, 

 and the Loew-Osten Sacken type collection of Diptera was 

 thus established ; it still remains in good condition, and we 

 may expect will continue to be useful for many years to come. 



After returning to Europe, Osten Sacken felt that his labors 

 in descriptive entomology were practically at an end. He 

 continued to publish papers on the larger phases of classifica- 

 tion, on insect habits, historical researches on entomology, etc., 

 up to a few years before his death. In 1886-87 he published 

 216 pages of Vol. I. of the Diptera in the Biologia Centrali- 

 Americana. In 1903 and 1904 he published his "Record of 

 My Life Work in Entomology" (parts I and II printed in 

 Cambridge, Mass. ; part III in Heidelberg), which gives not 

 only a review of his own activity, but includes critical esti- 

 mates of several contemporary entomologists, and much his- 

 torical matter on dipterology in general. 



Osten Sacken's entomological work was almost completed 

 twenty-eight years ago, hence he seems to belong to a genera- 

 tion that has long passed away. Only one living dipterist of 

 this country, so far as I know, had a personal acquaintance 

 with him — I allude to S. W. Williston, who met him on his 

 last trip to this country. 



Osten Sacken wrote in Russian, German, French, Italian, 

 English, and on occasion in Latin ; he preferred English, in 

 which he had a literary style distinguished for clearness, force 

 and accuracy. The striking qualities of his character were 

 energy, farsightedness, persistence, keen discrimination, and 

 conscientiousness. No pecuniary consideration ever lessened 

 the completeness of his devotion to the Diptera. He always 

 sought to be impartial, but the bent of his mind was such that 

 he could never appreciate the argument of a man who dis- 

 agreed with him. Such people seemed to him either mildly 

 insane, or else animated with a personal animosity towards 

 himself. In a letter to the writer, he says in regard to Loew, 

 ' ' I am conscious of having been perfectly fair towards him in 

 my Record. I never doubted for an instant that he was a 

 perfectly honest and veracious man. His idiosyncrasies I 

 incline to ascribe to a congenital defect of the brain which 



