Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/476

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472
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

as well. He was an excellent collector and his cabinet was unusually rich in Californian and Pacific coast forms. This collection remains in New York, and forms the nucleus for the lepidoptera in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History.

Dr. George D. Hulst was one of the Brooklyn entomologists and devoted his energies to work in the lepidopterous families Geometridæ and Pyralididæ. "While his systematic work in these groups is most useful, it is not equal to his personal influence upon those that were fortunate enough to come into contact with him. I grew to love that man and felt his death as a personal loss. His collection is now in my charge at Rutgers College, to which institution it was given by him before his death.

Dr. Herman Strecker, of Reading, Pa., was known to many of our older members, and never were there more diverse judgments than those passed upon him. But he was earnest if erratic, and succeeded in accumulating an enormous collection of lepidoptera during his long life. He would pay any price for a specimen that he wanted, and halt at no expedient to secure what he could not buy. He was a genius with pen, pencil and chisel; a sculptor of mortuary emblems by profession, and a painter of butterflies by choice. His publication on this subject was unique: all the drawings and engravings were made by him, and all the plates were hand colored. His industry was continuous and he was tireless in his work. His writings were spicy and he never hesitated in printing what he wanted to say: he was his own publisher and had none to say him nay. His collection is now in the Field Museum in Chicago.

In the tineid families of the Microlepidoptera there was an immense untilled field which only one of the older American students had the courage to undertake. To Brackenridge Clemens belongs the honor of breaking ground in this series, and upon his work the subsequent students in the group, whom fortunately we yet number among • our associates, have built their own. Clemens also did some work in the macros, notably the Sphingidæ, and many of his types are yet to be found in the collections of the American Entomological Society.

Among the unique figures in American entomology none looms larger than Dr. H. A. Hagen, of Cambridge. Big, ponderous, thoroughly German to the end of his life, intensely loyal to his chief and his work, he was easily the most learned entomologist of his day. His monumental work in the literature of entomology has proved a gold mine for later students, and would alone have been considered a creditable life work. But Dr. Hagen was also a special student in the Neuroptera, and his volume in the Smithsonian series is essential to every student in the order to the present day. I knew Dr. Hagen well and was his guest at times. I won his heart by the meekness with