Oct., 1915 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 85 



his care over his own generosity made him generally known and 

 beloved through three counties. 



This man could have taken rank as one of the leading scientists 

 of America, but he preferred that his discoveries be given to 

 those in the profession who could benefit materially by them. 

 Almost the only way he was known to science was through his 

 friendship for John B. Smith, in whom he took a fatherly interest 

 from 1883 until the latter's death, in 1912. Brakeley was the 

 American pioneer in mosquito study, taking it up in 1872. Few 

 eastern forms are unrepresented either by Brakeley types or com- 

 plete life histories, which were sent either to Smith or Dr. 

 Coquillett, at the U. S. National Museum. The list of them is 

 preserved in Smith's List of the Insects of New Jersey. It was 

 he who taught to Smith the rudiments of mosquito study and in- 

 duced that indefatigable worker to make it the keynote of his 

 professional career. Of the records of insects in all orders in the 

 New Jersey List far more came from Lahaway or were made by 

 Brakeley than from any other authority. 



To satisfy a request from Smith for some method of studying 

 the burrows of underground insects Brakeley invented the method 

 of taking plaster casts, which has been too little followed, as the 

 average worker lacks the delicacy of touch necessary to dissect 

 out the slender tube representing the work of some bee five or six 

 feet below the soil level. A long and unrecorded study of the 

 species of Cicindcla by their distinctive burrows with proofs of 

 the two-year existence in larval form has died with Brakeley. 

 A thousand other studies cannot even be mentioned here. 



As a botanist, albeit with a contempt for the taxonomic side of 

 the study, Brakeley excelled, for he noted every form and counted 

 each bloom. Cultivation at Lahaway was almost abandoned in 

 favor of the wild growth. The rarest orchids preempted the 

 richest spots in the cranberry beds. 



The master of Lahaway never ceased to mourn the untimely 

 death of Smith. His tender solicitude was, in a way, transferred 

 as a legacy to the present editor of the Bulletin of the Brook- 

 lyn Entomological Society, Smith's first and favorite society. 



