The Brothers Brimley 13 



W.T. Bost, later said that C.S. "had the sort of genius which made him a 

 great scientist without asking anything of the schools." Then, in reference 

 to his honorary doctorate, Bost added, "The University thinks it gave him 

 a degree; but in a larger sense he gave it one." 



H.H. Brimley died at Rex Hospital on April 4, 1946, age 85, probably 

 the oldest active state employee in North Carolina's history. C.S. Brimley 

 died at his home a little over three months later, on July 23, 1946, while 

 dressing to go to his office in the Agriculture Building. Their productive 

 careers were dedicated to the Department of Agriculture; H.H. was 

 associated with the State Museum for over 60 years, 43 of them as direc- 

 tor, and C.S. with the Division of Entomology for at least 45 years, nearly 

 27 of them as an employee. Their service to the state of North Carolina 

 and its people, of course, cannot be measured in any such ordinary time 

 frame. They had a very profound influence on the scientific and 

 educational development of natural history in the southeast, particularly 

 in their chosen state, perhaps more than any other naturalists of their 

 time. The firm and enviable foundation which they laid was witnessed in a 

 letter of April 12, 1946 to C.S. from a friend in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

 "Both of you," he said, "have done a tremendous amount for the state in 

 stimulating it to go ahead with various things. Virginia has no such 

 museum, nor a collection of insects, nor such a bird book, or a catalogue of 

 its mammals — and a lot of other things are lacking because Virginia had 

 no Brimley brothers." 



As a measure of the esteem in which these men were held by their 

 colleagues and other specialists who came later and appreciated their con- 

 tributions, a number of animals were named for them. These included the 

 fish Notropis brimleyi, the frog Pseudacns brimleyi, the salamander 

 Desmognathus brimieyorum, the millipeds Deltotana bnmleii and D. brimleardia, 

 and the hymenoptera Pedinaspis brimleyi, Halictus brimleyi, Colletes brimleyi, 

 and Ephuta pauxilla brimleyi. 



Tributes to their influence on young naturalists, many of whom later 

 became outstanding scientists, are numerous. One of America's leading 

 ecologists, Eugene P. Odum (now Alumni Foundation Distinguished 

 Professor of Zoology and director of the Institute of Ecology at the Univer- 

 sity of Georgia), wrote in the preface to his 1949 compilation of H.H.'s 

 writings, T well remember my first visit with H.H. Brimley, when I was a 

 young high-school student. He took me under his wing and made me feel 

 at home immediately. The enthusiasm and sincerity with which he 

 worked and talked impressed me especially. In fact, H.H. Brimley and his 

 brother C.S. did more than anyone else to encourage me to develop my in- 

 terest in birds which later led me to go into teaching and research in 

 biology as a career." 



A friend in England once wrote to H.H. Brimley: "But what a life you 

 have had, and what an interesting one; it was built for you and fitted your 



