2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



111 1898 Captain Casey was married to Miss Laura Welsh, of Phila- 

 delphia, and they made their first home in Virginia. Captain Casey 

 had been in charge of construction work at Fort Monroe ; upon the 

 outbreak of the Spanish War he was made major and was entrusted 

 with the submarine mine defenses of Hampton Roads. 



Early in the present century Major Casey was assigned to duty on 

 the Mississippi River, and here began an interest in conchology which 

 was to continue throughout his life. For 4 years he was a member of 

 the Mississippi River Commission, stationed first at Vicksburg and 

 later at St. Louis. It was at this time that he began to build up the 

 notable collection of recent and fossil shells of the lower Mississippi 

 which served as basis for studies carried on during the later years of 

 his life. 



For 40 years Thomas Lincoln Casey was an eager and devoted 

 student of Coleoptera. Half a dozen of his papers on North American 

 beetles appeared in the year 1884, and from then on they were fre- 

 quent. The 50 or more publications which came out before 1910 were 

 confined to Coleoptera of North America, but with the " Memoirs 

 on the Coleoptera " (1910-1924) he enlarged his field to include Cen- 

 tral and South American species as well. Every paper was the fruit 

 of careful and accurate study. 



By field work and by extensive purchases, the young officer was 

 carefully building up a collection of American Coleoptera and a library 

 of the publications dealing with them, which were to excite the ad- 

 miration of all who were privileged to examine them. The constant 

 shifting of base which was involved in his army career enabled him 

 to do field work and make additions to his collection in almost every 

 section of our country, for he was stationed successively on Long 

 Island, in Philadelphia, in California, in Texas, in Rhode Island, at 

 New York, in Virginia, at Vicksburg, at St. Louis, and finally at 

 Washington, D. C, where he continued to make his home after his 

 retirement in 1912. 



His studies were based on specimens in his possession, and were a 

 regular feature of his early schedule. Two hours of the leisure left 

 by his military duties were devoted to entomology. In this daily 

 period he put his specimens under his binocular compound microscope 

 and subjected them to an examination that was detailed and thorough 

 to the last degree. Measurements, when taken, were painstakingly 

 accurate, and every fine point of habitus and sculpture was covered 

 in his notes. Many of his papers were privately printed and were 

 distributed so as to put their findings at the disposal of all students 

 to whom they would be of value. 



