324 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Nov., '18 



genera and species of Diptera as known up to 1862-4 are 

 analytically arranged and succinctly described. To his immense 

 relief and satisfaction, he now found that all his American 

 flies could be traced to their families, and most of them to 

 their genera, in this fine work. He was so impressed by the 

 saving of time accomplished that his own publications coming 

 later show the effect of this early experience on every page ; 

 everywhere he has the beginner in mind and is clearing the 

 way for him. 



In a few years he began publishing tentative papers analyz- 

 ing the American families and genera of the flies. These he 

 extended and enlarged in a pamphlet in 1888, and again in a 

 bound volume in 1896; and in 1908 published a third edition 

 still more complete, with 1000 figures, his well-known Manual 

 of Diptera. This third edition is his main contribution to ento- 

 mology. It is a handbook unapproached by anything else 

 dealing with a large order of insects. From necessity he 

 published it at his own expense ; it was eight years before the 

 receipts from sales covered the cost of printing, but happily 

 he lived to see this consummation. 



His other papers of his early period. 18S1-89, dealt with 

 Asilidae, Conopidae, Tabanidae, and smaller groups, and es- 

 pecially with Syrphidae, in which his fine monograph of 1886 

 is still in universal use, and by the taxonomic genius of its 

 author has created in the United States an ineradicable belief 

 that the family is an easy one, well adapted for the beginner 

 to publish in ; a mistaken belief, but highly complimentary to 

 the monographer. 



From 1890 his more important papers were concerned with 

 tropical Diptera (Mexico, St. Vincent, Brazil), and with bibli- 

 ography. As his official duties grew more exacting, he gradu- 

 ally abandoned entomology, but he had as many farewell ap- 

 pearances as an opera singer, for he could not resist the temp- 

 tation to come back again and again. Even as late as the 

 spring of 191 7. w^hen he was visiting the writer and reveling 

 once more in a collection of Diptera. his old enthusiasm came 

 back so strongly that he planned describing some new genera, 



