PSYCHE 
VOL. XXXIX MARCH-JUNE, 1932 
Nos. 1-2 
J. H. EMERTON 
By Nathan Banks 
James Henry Emerton was born at Salem, Massachu- 
setts, March 31, 1847, where, as a boy, he attended the 
local school. He was rather frail and a young helper in 
his father’s drug store, George F. Markoe, interested the 
boy in outdoor life. They collected plants, insects and 
shore invertebrates and at the age of fifteen he was fre- 
quently visiting the Essex Institute, where he became ac- 
quainted with A. S. Packard, F. W. Putnam, John Robin- 
son, Caleb Cooke, and others who later became more or 
less prominent students of Natural History. 
From the first he showed much skill in drawing and 
made sketches of a great variety of natural objects. He 
took no lessons in the art, and his later skill in this as 
well as in modeling was of his own initiative. 
In 1868 in the American Naturalist advertiser there ap- 
peared the following: — “James H. Emerton, Zoological and 
Botanical Draughtsman, Salem, Mass., is prepared to exe- 
cute drawings on paper or wood for Zoological Subjects. 
Especial attention given to the delineation of Insects. Ref- 
erences: Editors of American Naturalist.” 
Of these early drawings there are many in Packard’s 
“Guide” and forty quarto plates in Watson and Eaton 
“Botany of the Fortieth Parallel” published in 1871. He 
was elected to the Boston Society of Natural History in 
