83 



logy. He spent much time in rearing the larvae of lepidoptera, making coloured drawings of 

 them through their stages of growth. He collected largely in coleoptera and was a very 

 accurate observer of habits. It is due to his skill as a collector that some of the rarest 

 species have been recorded as occurring in his locality. 



DR. JOHN L. LE CONTE. 



This eminent and world-renowned coleopterist died at his residence in Philadelphia, 

 on the 15th November, 1883, after an illness of several months, in his fifty-ninth year. He 

 was bom in New York, but had made Philadelphia his home during the last thirty years. 

 He graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1846. In 1857 he spent several 

 months in South America with a party of engineers who were engaged in surveying a 

 railway across Honduras, he prepared the geological report of the party. At the begin- 

 ning of the war he entered the army as a surgeon, was soon promoted to the position of 

 medical inspector with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and served in that capacity until 

 1865. In 1867 he was attached to the Kansas Pacific Survey, and made valuable reports 

 on the country adjacent to the railway in Colorado and New Mexico. He was a student 

 of science all his life, and an active or corresponding member of the leading scientific 

 and philosophical societies of this country and Europe ; but his specialty was entomo- 

 logy, and in the order of coleoptera he has long stood at the head of the list of Ameri- 

 can original investigators. On this subject he has been a volumnious and practical writer, 

 and has probably done more to advance this department of science than any other man in 

 America. His loss will be deeply felt, especially by all those engaged in the study of 

 American beetles, since he was always ready and willing to do all in his power to assist 

 students and collectors in every quarter. 



