Packard, Alpheus Spring, Jr.

Packard, Alpheus Spring, Jr. (1839–1905) entomologist, geologist; born in Brunswick, Maine. After graduating from Bowdoin College (1861), he served as an entomologist on the Maine geological survey. His work so impressed geologist Louis Agassiz of Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School that he secured a position as Agassiz's assistant (1861–84) while concurrently earning his M.D. from Maine Medical School (1864). He was an assistant surgeon for the Maine Veteran Volunteers during the Civil War (1864–65), then became librarian and custodian for the Boston Society of Natural History (1865–66) and curator of the Essex Institute (1866). While director of the Peabody Academy of Science (Salem, Mass.) (1867–78), he founded the journal American Naturalist (1867) and served as its editor-in-chief until 1887. He was the State Entomologist of Massachusetts (1871–73), and a member of the U.S. Entomological Commission (1877–82). He then taught entomology at the Massachusetts Agricultural College (1870–78), before becoming a professor of zoology and geology at Brown University (1878–1905). His contributions to taxonomy include descriptions of 50 genera and 580 species of insects and marine invertebrates. He was also an authority on insect embryology, and published articles on glaciation. A naturalist in a time of specialization, he was the best-known American entomologist in both the U.S.A. and Europe at the time of his death.