1883.) 295 (Horn. 
care and development of his only child. The devotion of the father was 
rewarded in living to see the son take a foremost place umong the scien- 
tists of his day, honored at home and abroad. The father had already made 
the name well known in science, when the son entered the field and added 
greatly to its renown, 
After arriving ata suitable age, the boy was placed in St. Mary’s Col- . 
lege, Maryland, from which he graduated in 1842, from the Doctor’s ac- 
count the discipline of the school was severe, the training accurate and 
thorough, and the tutors conscientious in the discharge of their duties. At 
this early period of his life he exhibited the tastes of a naturalist, and he 
has often recounted the annoyances and ridicule to which he was subjected 
by his fellow-pupils, who had no sympathy with his pursuits. His teachers, 
even, feared that his, to them, more important studies would be neglected, 
and the father was made acquainted with their suspicions. Finding that 
the pupil was in no respect deficient in his regular duties, the father 
directed that these tendencies should not be repressed. The boy made 
rapid progress, and exhibited a peculiar aptitude for the study of languages 
and mathematics, and, doubtless, in this manner laid the foundation for that 
accuracy and retentiveness of his memory so characteristic of his maturer 
years, 
After the completion of the collegiate course, he returned to New York, 
and entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons, receiving his medical 
degree in 1846. Before this date his first essays in original work made their 
appearance, and, to use his own language, gave unmistakable evidence of 
his youth and inexperience. 
During 1849 he made several visits to the upper shore of Lake Superior, 
collecting largely, and publishing the results, with many new species, in 
Agassiz’s work on that region. In the autumn of 1850 he visited California, 
stopping for a short time at Panama, remaining absent during the greater 
portion of the following year. His explorations in California were made, 
for the most part, south of San Francisco, at San José, San Diego and their 
surroundings. From the latter point he crossed the Colorado desert, then 
and for many years after a terror to travelers, going as far eastward as the 
Pima villages, The entire region was a new one to science, and he made 
abundant use of his opportunities. On his return the results of his journey 
were published in the ‘‘ Annals of the Lyceum” of New York. The new 
material was, however, so abundant that some yet remains in his cabinet 
unstudied. 
Tn 1852 the LeContes removed to Philadelphia, and the works of both 
have, with few exceptions, been published in the periodicals of our socie- 
ties since that time. 
For a few months in 1857 he accompanied the Honduras Inter-Oceanic 
Survey, under the command of the late John C, Trautwine, publishing his 
observations in that region in the report of the survey. At the same time 
he visited the Fuente de Sangre, publishing his account of that phenome- 
non in Squier’s Nicaragua, 
