Introduction

This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.

Descriptive Entry

This record unit includes papers relating to entomology, especially the taxonomy of the larvae of lepidoptera; correspondence, 1887-1927, between Dyar and others regarding identification and exchange of specimens, comments on published papers, and other professional concerns; Dyar's "Manuscript Notes on Lepidoptera," "Notes On Bombycidae of the United States," and materials relating to his List of North American Lepidoptera, rearing records, and one diary of field trips, 1905-1908; and Dyar's Catalog of Lepidoptera, a list of specimens which he placed in the national collection. The correspondence is located in the Smithsonian Institution Archives. Other materials are housed in the National Museum of Natural History, Department of Entomology; and the National Agriculture Library in Beltsville, Maryland. Consult the Smithsonian Institution Archives for further information.

Historical Note

Harrison Gray Dyar (1866-1929) was honorary Custodian of the National Museum's collection of lepidoptera for more than thirty years; he served largely as an unpaid curator, although he was briefly on the payroll of the Department of Agriculture. A graduate of Columbia University (Ph.D. 1895), he worked on lepidoptera, especially their larvae; larvae of saw flies, larvae of mosquitoes, and bacteria. Around the turn of the century, interest in mosquito-borne diseases attracted his attention; he and Frederick Knab were responsible for the taxonomic portions of the work on mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies for the volumes published by the Carnegie Institution between 1912 and 1917. He collected and reared insects in New York, Colorado, Florida, British Columbia, Panama, and elsewhere. He was proprietor and editor of Insecutor Inscitiae Menstruus, 1913-1927, as well as editor of other publications.