746 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 49. 



both schools he carried off the first prizes for 

 drawing, making finished sketches of but- 

 terflies, thus showing his early bent for nat- 

 ural historj^, and his teacher at Bonn urged 

 him to study art at Paris. But it is said 

 that family cu-cumstances, though rather, 

 perhaps, a restless disposition, led him to 

 abandon the old country, and at the age of 

 17 he had emigrated to Illinois, and settled 

 on a farm about fifty miles from Chicago. 

 When about 21 he removed to Chicago, 

 where he became a reporter and editor of 

 the entomological department of the Prairie 

 Farmer. 



Near the close of the war, in 1864, he en- 

 listed as a private in the 134th Illinois 

 regiment, serving for six months, when he 

 returned to his editorial office. 



He also enjoyed for several years the close 

 friendship of B. D. Walsh, one of our most 

 thorough and philosophic entomologists, 

 with whom he edited the American Entomolo- 

 gist. His industry and versatility as well 

 as his zeal as an entomologist made him 

 widely known and popular, and gave him 

 such prestige that it resulted in his ap- 

 pointment in 1868 as State Entomologist of 

 Missouri. From that time until 1877, when 

 he left St. Louis to live in Washington, he 

 issued a series of nine annual reports on in- 

 jurious insects, which showed remarkable 

 powers of observation both of structure and 

 habits, great skill in drawing and especially 

 ingenious and thoroughly practical devices 

 and means of destroying the pests. The re- 

 ports were models and will never become 

 stale. Darwin wrote in 1871: " There is a 

 vast number of facts and generalizations of 

 value to me, and I am struck with admira- 

 tion at your power of observation. The dis- 

 cussion on mimetic insects seems to me par- 

 ticularly good and original." In reviewing 

 the ninth and last of these reports, published 

 in 1876, the Entomologists^ Monthly Magazine of 

 London, remarked: "The author, in giving 

 full scope to his keen powers of observation. 



minuteness of detail, and the skill with 

 which he uses his pencil, and at the same 

 time in showing a regard for that scientific 

 accuracy — unfortunatelj^ too often neglected 

 in works on economic natural history — main- 

 tains his right to be termed the foremost 

 economic entomologist of the day." It goes 

 without saying that this prestige existed to 

 the end of his life, his practical applications 

 of remedies and inventions of apparatus 

 giving him a world-wide reputation. In 

 token of his suggestion of reviving the vines 

 injured by the Phyloxera by the importa- 

 tion of the American stock, he received a 

 gold medal from the French government, 

 and he afterwards received the cross of the 

 Legion d'Honneur in connection with the 

 exhibit of the TJ. S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture at the Paris Exposition of 1880. 



The widespread ravages of the Rocky 

 Mountain locust from 1873 to 1877 had oc- 

 casioned such immense losses in several 

 States and Territories that national aid was 

 invoked to avert the evil. The late Dr. F. 

 V. Hayden, then in charge of the U. S. 

 Geographical and Geological Survey of the 

 Territories, with his characteristic energy 

 and sagacity, initiated researches on the 

 locust in the Territories. He sent Dr. P. 

 E. Uhler to Colorado in the summer of 

 1875, and also attached the present writer 

 to the Survey, who spent over two months 

 in entomological work in the same j'ear in 

 Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, publishing 

 the results in Hayden's Ninth Report. 

 Mr. Walsh had made important suggestions 

 as to the birthplace and migrations of the 

 insect. Meanwhile Riley had since 1874 

 made very detailed studies on the migration 

 and breeding habits and means of destruc- 

 tion of this locust (published in his Missouri 

 State Report for 1876 and 1877). Dr. C3'rus 

 Thomas had also been attached to Hay- 

 den's Survejr, and published a monograph 

 on the locust familj^, Acrydidie. As the 

 result of this combined work Congress ere- 



