January 21, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



75 



as a necessary consequence of the constant 

 readiness of his room for work, it was for- 

 bidden to do any cleaning, except in the 

 immediate vicinity of the bed. During the 

 entire time that I was acquainted with Dr. 

 Horn — and this was nearly eighteen years — 

 I can remember no more than one occasion 

 when the room had been actually swept and 

 scrubbed in its entirety. When Dr. Horn 

 began to give up active practice, several 

 years ago, he ceased to sleep in this room, 

 and it was not long before the bed was piled 

 as high as the table with books, boxes and 

 other literary or entomological material. 



For many years Dr. Horn seemed to have 

 no interest in life outside of his profession 

 and his scientific work in Celeoptera. His 

 collections in this order increased enor- 

 mously, as did his knowledge ; so that, even 

 during the lifetime of Dr. Leconte, he was 

 the man best acquainted with the structural 

 characteristics of the North American Co- 

 leoptera. 



It is almost impossible to speak of Dr. 

 Horn without also referring to Dr. John L. 

 Leconte, his fellow townsman, and for many 

 years also his fellow worker in Coleoptera. 

 Although at first there was some friction be- 

 tween him and the younger man, who was 

 very positive in many cases where the older, 

 more experienced student was inclined to 

 be conservative, yet the two men soon be- 

 came firm friends, and so continued during 

 their joint lives. The combination was use- 

 ful to both. Dr. Leconte was, by all odds, 

 the broader man ; his knowledge of nature 

 at large was much wider, and he saw his 

 specialty, the Coleoptera, much more truly 

 in their relation to the other orders of in- 

 sects, and this class in its relation to the 

 rest of the animal kingdom. Dr. Horn was 

 much more completely a specialist, with lit- 

 tle interest outside of the Coleoptera, but 

 in this knowledge of detail was infinitely 

 greater, and the result of combining two 

 such men appears in the Classification of the 



North American Coleoptera, which is their 

 joint production. There is no other work 

 which will compare with this in the amount 

 of condensed strictly scientific, technical in- 

 formation on this order of insects. Unfor- 

 tunately, these characters, which render it 

 so valuable to the advanced student, rather 

 repel than attract the tyro. 



Dr. Horn was by nature an arranger of 

 things. In his hands the most hopelessly 

 mixed lot of specimens separated themselves 

 naturally ; he found characters where none 

 had been suspected, and his appreciation of 

 the value of apparently immaterial or in- 

 significant structures resulted in some of 

 the most brilliant work that he did. He 

 had an almost intuitive perception, which 

 enabled him to arrange a large mass of spe- 

 cies in a natural series. He had also the 

 power of persistent and practical applica- 

 tion, the abilitjr to do continuous hard 

 work, which enabled him to give a solid 

 scientific foundation to the conclusions that 

 he had reached. He had a facile pencil, 

 which he used in illustrating his work. His 

 pictures were by no means artistic, for that 

 faculty was to a great extent lacking ; but 

 somehow his drawings, even when they 

 were mere outlines, seemed to convey 

 the information that he intended they 

 should, so that his sketches were always a 

 real help. 



It is difficult for one who is not a special- 

 ist to appreciate the work that was accom- 

 plished by Dr. Horn. The number of titles 

 of papers published by him is not especially 

 large. It does not exceed 240, all but six 

 entomological, and in these about one hun- 

 dred and fifty new genera and about fifteen 

 hundred and fifty new species were de- 

 scribed. But this does not fairly express 

 the work that was accomplished, because, 

 by all odds, the greater part of Dr. Horn's 

 species and genera were described in con- 

 nection with monographic work, so that 

 while a paper might contain descriptions 



