Grossbeck: John B, Smith as a Lepidopterist 29 



Discussions on the structure and classification of the Lepidop- 

 tera characterized his very early work which was an evident indi- 

 cation of his method of burrowing to the roots of any task he 

 undertook. Later, this particular characterization wore off and 

 his work took on the form of monographs, as, for instance, his 

 "Revision of the Saturniidae," "The Species of Callimorpha," 

 " Monograph of the Sphingidae," and his innumerable revisions 

 of noctuid genera; and incidentally this entailed a search into 

 the literature for references and resulted in his catalogue of the 

 Noctuidae and his " Preliminary Catalogue of the Arctiidae." 

 Still later, his economic work occupying so much of his time, he 

 perforce gave up first his work on general Lepidoptera, and then 

 second, much of his monographic work on Noctuidae. He still 

 continued, however, to determine material for collectors, and he 

 also kept adding to the college collection by purchase, so that very 

 many new species came into his hands. These he described in a 

 long series of papers as new noctuids for the year in which the 

 descriptions appeared. 



All told Professor Smith named and described over nine hun- 

 dred new species of moths, nearly all of which were noctuids, 

 and of individual papers on Lepidoptera he has one hundred and 

 forty-three to his credit. 



Analyzing his monographic papers, we find that all are con- 

 structed on a very similar plan. A usually long discursive intro- 

 duction gives the general characteristics of the group or groups 

 and when only a genus is considered the general appearances of 

 its included species are stated. Structure also is usually gone 

 into to a considerable extent and the male genitalia are frequently 

 figured to demonstrate the distinctness of allied species. Follow- 

 ing the introduction a table of genera or species is given, and 

 then each species is described in detail. Remarks on the affinities 

 of the species, their variability, distribution, etc., usually closes the 

 discussion of species. The early stages are practically never 

 considered, though references to these are always given in the 

 bibliography. 



