The Brothers Brimley 9 



entomology, he began at once to collect and catalogue the insects and 

 other arthropods of the state. One of his major purposes was to have a 

 collection which would "give as complete an idea as possible of the insect 

 life of the State, showing the different stages of growth of each species, 

 and the food upon which they live. " By the time of Sherman's 1 902 report 

 the collection had grown to "30,000 specimens, which may be seen at any 

 time in the office of the Museum building." 



Early in the century Sherman began publishing information ac- 

 cumulated in the project, and by the end of the first decade had produced 

 lists of North Carolina tiger beetles, tabanid flies, flat bugs, butterflies, 

 scorpionflies, dragonflies, and grasshoppers and their relatives. Many 

 ofthese papers were coauthored with C.S. Brimley while he was still a 

 private entrepreneur. C.S. met Sherman about the time he became state 

 entomologist, and Sherman, as C.S. later wrote, "revived my long flag- 

 ging interest in insects." Their association developed into a lasting 

 friendship, and in December 1919 C.S. entered the service of the Division 

 of Entomology to take charge of the "Insect Survey." By this time data 

 had accumulated on more than 5000 species known to occur in North 

 Carolina, and Sherman and his group had prepared several hundred 

 pages of manuscript "for what we hope may ultimately be a volume on 

 'The Insects of North Carolina,' in which every known species of insect in 

 the State shall be listed." 



C.S. Brimley assiduously set about the task of expanding the collec- 

 tions and data files and enlarged their scope to include other members of 

 the state's fauna. "When Mr. Brimley came into the state service," wrote 

 Sherman in 1925, "he soon likewise card-catalogued the species of 

 Batrachians, Reptiles, and Mammals of the state which have been 

 recorded in papers by himself or others. With the Vertebrates thus on 

 record, and the Insects in full swing, it was merely an incident to include 

 the Invertebrates other than Insects." In addition to Sherman and 

 Brimley, other workers on the "Insect Survey" through 1925 were J. C. 

 Crawford, R.W. Leiby, C.L. Metcalf, Z.P. Metcalf, T.B. Mitchell, and 

 M.R. Smith. 



In most respects C.S. was the more scientifically oriented of the 

 Brimley brothers and kept remarkably detailed records on southeastern 

 fauna and flora for more than 60 years. By the time he joined the depart- 

 ment he was already widely published in a number of journals, and his 

 amazing expertise, largely self-taught, extended to entomology, herp- 

 etology, mammalogy, ornithology, and botany. He was also quite 

 knowledgeable about many invertebrate groups other than insects. In 

 short, he was a virtuoso naturalist, whose "main interest for many years 

 zoologically," as he wrote in 1925, "has been to gain and disseminate 



