Vol. XXXl] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 117 



In the Proceedings of the Essex Institute: 

 Phalangideae of the United States. 1867, 30 pp. 



Dr. Wood vras Recording Secretary of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, from October 31, 1865, to 

 February 26, 1867. 



Henry Skinner. 



While, aside from his writings along pharmacological and 

 medical lines, perhaps better known for his work on fresh- 

 water algae, Dr. Wood was for a number of years in the 

 earlier part of his scientific career an active and successful 

 student of the Myriopoda and Arachnida. His work on the 

 latter group was confined to the Pedipalpida, Phalangida, 

 and Scorpionida. Beginning with the description of a new 

 Japanese thelyphonid in 1861. he published in this field a 

 number of papers of systematic character of which the most 

 important are his " On the Pedipalpi of North America" (1863) 

 and "On the Phalangeae of the United States" fi868). papers 

 which, in presenting what had been learned of this part of 

 our fauna up to his day together with his own material addi- 

 tions in clear and useful revisional form, have served as a 

 stimulus and starting point for later work. His final paper 

 touching these groups appeared in 1869 and was an account 

 of new South American and African forms. 



The period of Dr. Wood's activity on the Myriopoda, as 

 indicated by published papers, extended from 1861 to 1867, 

 apparently terminating with his call to the professorship of 

 botany in the University of Pennsylvania in 1866. His de- 

 scriptive papers on the North American Myriopoda, published 

 during this period, were the first of importance by an Ameri- 

 can writer since Say's Myriapoda? of the United States (1821) 

 and have formed the basis for subsequent work. The first 

 paper (1861), an account of new, mostly exotic, species of 

 Scolopendra in the collection of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, was followed two years later b\- an 

 extensive paper on the Chilopoda of North America in which 

 were listed or described also all the exotic species then in the 



