OBITUAEY. 143 



on a lepidopterist's work during 1904. The volume contains an ex- 

 cellent portrait of Mr. Samuel J. Capper, F.E.S., the perennial Presi- 

 dent of the Society. 



Entomologen-Adressbuch. Pp. 296. Berlin : W. Junk. 1905. 



This exceedingly useful Entomologist Directory gives the names 

 and addresses of some 9000 individuals living in various parts of the 

 world who are occupied in the study of Entomology or are interested 

 in collecting insects. Of these about 2000 are credited to Germany, 

 something like 1800 to Great Britain, and rather less than 1000 

 to France. The number for the United States very slightly exceeds 

 that for our own country. 



OBITUARY. 



Alpheus Spring Packard. 



This celebrated American entomologist died at Providence, Rhode 

 Island, on February 14th last, having held the position of Professor of 

 Zoology and Geology in Brown University since 1878. He was born 

 at Brunswick, Maine, where his father, who bore the same name as 

 himself, was then a Professor. He graduated there in 1861, and sub- 

 sequently qualified in medicine, and served as Assistant-Surgeon 

 during 1864 and 1865 in the United States Army ; but otherwise he 

 devoted his time wholly to science, and very largely to entomology, 

 where he won for himself a position not unlike that so long filled 

 by Prof. Westwood in Britain ; and it is only of his entomological 

 work that we propose to speak here. 



Entomologists of the present day do not perhaps know that fifty 

 years ago there was a small penny paper, ' The Entomologist's Weekly 

 Intelligencer,' edited by H. T. Staniton, which ran for ten volumes, 

 and was the immediate ancestor of the ' Entomologists' Monthly 

 Magazine.' The influence of this small forgotten paper on the progress 

 of entomology both in Britain and America was almost incalculable, 

 and in vol. vii., pp. 14, 15 (Oct. 8th, 1859), we find a letter from 

 young Packard, saying that he wished to make a special study of the 

 GeometriusB, and appealing to British entomologists for assistance. 

 Packard was thus one of the earliest of the great band of entomolo- 

 gists — Scudder, W. H. Edwards, H. Edwards, Grote, Cresson, Osten- 

 Sacken, Walsh, Piiley, and others — who have worked during the last 

 half-century till the insects of the United States are more thoroughly 

 and exhaustively studied and known than those of any part of the 

 world, not excepting Britain itself. To this result Packard himself 

 very largely contributed. He was one of the founders of the ' American 

 Naturalist,' which he edited for twenty years. (Part of the informa- 

 tion in the present article is taken from the March number of that 

 Journal.) From 1868 to 1872 Packard edited a ' Record of American 

 Entomology,' and his contributions to leading American scientific 



