PSYCHE 
[.'ijs. tur F. zuuL 
LIBRARY 
1 5 1954 
HAilV.'iRa 
UK“;LaSlTY 
Vol. 61 
September, 1954 
No. 3 
NATHAN BANKS 
A Biographic Sketch and List of Publications 
Nathan Banks was born at Roslyn, New York, on April 
13, 1868. After attending the Roslyn schools, he went to 
Cornell University, from which he received the Bachelor 
of Science degree in 1889. His early interest in natural 
history, which was apparent eve'^ in boyhood, developed 
during his college days into an enthusiasm for entomology 
that never diminished. Graduate studies at Cornell, under 
the supervision of Professor J. H. Comstock, led to the 
Master of Science degree in 1890. Later in that year he 
was appointed to a position in the Bureau of Entomology 
of the United States Department of Agriculture in Wash- 
ington, where for twenty-six years he did research on the 
taxonomy of insects and arachnids. 
As the years passed, however. Banks became dissatis- 
fied with the Washington position. One of his concerns 
was the safe housing and maintenance of his private col- 
lection of insects, which, as a result of exchanges with 
numerous entomologists in many countries, had attained 
extraordinary size and significance. In 1904 he wrote to 
Samuel Henshaw, the newly appointed director of the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology, inquiring about the pos- 
sibility of a position there. Henshaw was unable to ar- 
range for an appointment at that time, although he gave 
Banks definite encouragement for the future. 
Nearly ten years later, 1913, the appointment became 
something more than a hope. Towards the end of that 
year Banks wrote Henshaw: “When I get to the Museum 
I shall not expect to publish much for several years, as I 
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