September 15, 19111 



SCIENCE 



341 



work was published by others, so that in the 

 family Hsemulidse two genera and one species 

 are to-day credited to Scudder. 



Crustacea. — Rhachura venosa was published 

 as a new genus and species of fossil Crus- 

 tacea, and is accepted as valid. For some rea- 

 son, it is erroneously printed Bachura by 

 Weller and others. 



Arachnida. — One living spider from Nan- 

 tucket was published, Lycosa arenicola. In 

 1904 this became the type of the genus Oeo- 

 lycosa Montgomery. Thirteen species of 

 Paleozoic and thirty species of Tertiary arach- 

 nids were published. 



Myriapoda. — Scudder published 32 species 

 of Paleozoic myriapods and one from the Ter- 

 tiary rocks. The work on the Paleozoic forms 

 was very interesting and important. 



Fossil Insects. — The following figures are 

 obtained by going through Handlirsch's great 

 work on fossil insects, and my own (1909) list 

 of the Tertiary genera. In the latter paper 

 five genera of Canadian Homoptera are acci- 

 dentally omitted. 



Genera Species 



Carboniferous 44 116° 



Permian 5 76 



Lias , 6 



Jura 5 23 



Cretaceous 2 2 



Tertiary 177 838 



Quaternary 83 



Total fossil insects 233 1,144 



Although Scudder had the reputation of 

 being an excessive " splitter " as to genera, it 

 is to be noted that Handlirsch has actually 

 proposed 33 new generic names for or in- 

 cluding Scudder's Carboniferous species. 



Having myself done much work on fossil 

 insects from Florissant, where Scudder ob- 

 tained so much of his material, I can testify 

 to the general excellence of his work, while its 

 amount is simply astonishing. He made some 

 mistalces, and certainly described a number of 

 specimens which were too poorly preserved to 

 be satisfactorily classified; but he was to 

 American paleoentomology as Leidy, Cope and 

 Marsh combined were to our vertebrate pale- 



= Also four species later considered by Scudder 

 to be the remains of plants. 



ontology. Indeed there is little doubt that in 

 respect to the proportion of good work to bad, 

 or of valid genera and species to invalid, 

 Scudder appears in a most favorable light in 

 comparison with the great paleontologists 

 mentioned. 



Recent Insects 



Orthoptera.—Mr. J. A. G. Eehn says : " He 

 was the greatest orthopterist America has pro- 

 duced," a fact nobody could be found to dis- 

 pute. On going through Kirby's " Catalogue 

 of the Orthoptera of the World," I find 106 

 genera and 630 species credited to Scudder, 

 and two additional species to Scudder and 

 Cockerell. Most of these are North Amer- 

 ican, but many are exotic, especially from the 

 Andes and the Galapagos Islands. 



Odonata (dragon-flies). — Scudder worked 

 only for a short time on dragon-flies, but 

 the results were important. Muttkowski's 

 Catalogue (1910) credits six species and one 

 subspecies to Scudder. 



Lepidoptera Rhopalocera (butterflies). — The 

 work on butterflies was of the first importance, 

 and has been referred to above. The descrip- 

 tion of new species was a quite minor aspect 

 of it, but I find in the North American fauna 

 nineteen species credited to Scudder, and five 

 to Scudder and Burgess. There are also nu- 

 merous subspecies or varieties. More impor- 

 tant was the treatment of genera. Dyar's 

 Catalogue (1902) gives 44 valid genera de- 

 scribed by Scudder; but Skinner's later list, 

 representing the ideas of the older school, 

 recognizes only one Scudderian genus, though 

 some others are accepted and wrongly credited 

 to Speyer. In all, I find that Scudder de- 

 scribed 1,8S4 apparently valid species of 

 animals. 



It remains to note that Scudder came of 

 good stock, two of his brothers having at- 

 tained eminence. The older (born 1835), 

 David Coit Scudder, was a missionary of note, 

 who died in India. His " Life and Letters " 

 were published by Horace Scudder in 1864. 

 The younger brother (born 1838) was Horace 

 Elisha Scudder, well known as a writer of 

 stories for children and other works, and later 

 as the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Vida 



