116 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol. VIII 



importance of all orders. It contains, he said, at least twice as 

 many species as the Say collection. 



It is remarkable that Harris and Dr. Asa Fitch, the distin- 

 guished economic entomologist of New York did not correspond 

 and probably never met. Harris wrote to the Librarian ox 

 Yale for Fitch's papers on the Hessian fly, which would have 

 not been the case, had there been an acquaintance between the 

 two. 



The friendship with the Leconte family lasted over twenty- 

 five years. It was through Harris' influence that Major 

 Leconte published his Monographs on the Histers in Boston, 

 and that John L. Leconte chose the Boston Society of Natural 

 History to make his debut in his first really great paper. On 

 this occasion Leconte met Louis Agassiz. This meeting re- 

 sulted in the selection of Leconte for the famous expedition to 

 Lake Superior and the subsequent life-long friendship. 



In the mention of coleopterists in this paper there is included 

 every American beetle described up to 1845. The collectors 

 could be counted on one's fingers. There was Joseph Barabino, 

 a New Orleans merchant, who furnished all the local material 

 described by Say, and for whom no beetle has so far been 

 named. No beetle, either, remains named for Mr. Townsend, 

 the pioneer collector of Oregon and Washington territories, 

 who furnished hundreds of types for Schonherr, Reiche, Kirby, 

 Erichson, Germar, Leconte and others. One named for him by 

 Leconte fell into the synonymy. There was a butterfly collec- 

 tor in Philadelphia, he who kept his specimens in tin boxes and 

 melted wax on the bottoms, into which to stick his pins. There 

 were a half dozen Boston collectors, making no pretension to 

 scientific knowledge. A Mr. Wilkes of New York City, was in 

 1835 an amateur beetle collector. A Mr. Bachman of Charles- 

 town, S. C, had a collection and occasionally bought exotic, 

 showy specimens. 



Harris died in harness. The machine wore out in 1855. His 

 collection was bought by friends and presented to the Boston 

 Society of Natural History. It suffered during storage many 

 years ago, but is now reported to be in the best possible condi- 

 tion and in active use. His beetle species in the checklist are 

 24 with one genus. 



Late in 1913 another search was made of the Harris home in 



