Leland Ossian Howard

See also: Howard

Leland Ossian Howard is a American Entomologiste , born the June 11th 1857 with Rockford (Illinois) and dead on May 1st 1950 with Bronxwille, New York.

It is oldest of three wire of Ossian Gregory Howard, lawyer, and of Lucy Dunham born Thurber. The family settles with Ithaca and where Howard makes its studies. His/her father dies whereas Leland at thirteen years. He off obtains his Bachelor Sciences with the Université Cornell in 1877 with a thesis on the respiratory system of the Corydale retort ( Corydalus cornutus ). He is one of the first to follow the courses of John Henry Comstock (1849-1931), Howard evokes their meeting:

I was J.H. Comstock' S first laboratory student, and I pent many hours in his laboratory. I studied botany, geology, and chemistry, and also went in for history - perhaps especially - the French, Italian and German languages.

I had first puts Comstock before entering college. I was out collecting and for the first time had found the very beautiful Huntera butterfly, flying rather abundantly in has field off blossoming buckwheat. With strange Young man walked up and said, `C-c-catching insects?' I replied affirmatively, and He said, `M-m-my name is Comstock, and I t-t-teach entomology in College. C-C-C-like and see me'. This was the beginning off has life-length friendship. I went to see him, gave him insects for his newly started collection, and read his books, for the first time making the acquaintance off Lyonnet, Réaumur, Westwood, Kirby and Spence, Rennie, John Curtis, Fitch, Walsh, and has batch off others; for Comstock was already beginning has off library in entomology which has since become one the most important in America.

Although it starts studies of medicine at the university of Washington, it does not complete them and will obtain other titles only the six honorary diplomas which later various institutions like the Université Columbia will decree to him.

Impassioned very early by nature, it is, of 1878 with 1894, entomologist assisting with the service of Entomologie American ministry of agriculture (USDA). He works initially under the orders of Charles Valentine Riley (1843-1895) (in 1878 - 1879), then of John Henry Comstock (1849-1931) (of 1879 with 1881), then again at Riley of 1881 with 1894. He marries in 1886, Marie Theodore Clifton, union of which will be born three girls. This first station is obtained thanks to the intervention of J.H. Comstock. Howard will write:

I must say, however, that the practical importance off entomology did not appeal to me, and I studied insects simply ace fascinating forms off life. Off race I was not alone in this, and No one At that time had the faintest idae off what insects were then doing to the human race, and still less off what they were likely to C in the future. In fact, when in the early summer off 1878 Professor Riley began to corresponds with me butt going to Washington I looked upon this suggested post pleasant ace simply year way off eearning has living room until I could go into something bigger and broader.

Direction of the service of entomology, released by the departure with retirement C.V. Riley, in 1894, is initially proposed with Samuel Wendell Williston (1852-1918) but this one refuses. Howard makes play its relations and requires of J.H. Comstock like with Canadian James Fletcher (1852-1908) and of Samuel Hubbard Scudder (1837-1911) to support it in its request for this station which it ends up obtaining in June 1894. It will occupy this function until in 1927. After its departure with the retirement, it occupies until in 1931, of the functions of entomologist within the same service.

Howard is interested in biology and with the biological control of harmful species like disparate Bombyx ( Lymantria dispar ), the Carpocapse of apples and the pears ( Cydia pomonella ), the Charançon of cotton ( Anthonomus grown ), the European corn borer ( Ostrinia nubilalis ), etc Under its impulse, the budget of its service is multiplied by 100, passing from thirty thousand dollars to more than three million. He is an important actor of the installation of measurements of forty at the American borders in order to control the introduction of harmful species. It is interested all its life in the medical questions and in particular in the fight against the Paludisme what is worth a to him Medical Doctorate honoris causa of the Université George Washington.

Howard is permanent secretary of the American Association for the Advancement off Science of 1898 with 1919 and its president in 1920. It takes part in the foundation of the American Association Economic Entomologists which it directs in 1894. He is also member of the American Academy off Arts and Sciences and of various learned societies. Honorary members of many companies or foreign academies, it receives the Légion of honor and the agricultural Mérite in France.

He is the author of a considerable work including/understanding of the scientific work but also of popularization. He makes appear in 1933 are autobiography: Fighting the Insects. The Soty off year Entomologist (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1933). Among those, it is necessary to quote:

With Charles Lester Marlatt (1863-1954), Principal The household insects off the United States (1896);
The Insect Book (1901);
Mosquitoes : How They Live, How They Are Classified, and How They May Be Destroyed (1901);
The Housefly : Disease Carrier (1911, translated into Russian, Hungarian and Spanish);
With Harrison Gray Dyar (1866-1929) and Frederick Knab (1865-1918), The Mosquitoes off North and Central America and the West Indies (four volumes, 1912 - 1917);
The Importation into the United States off the parasitic off the gipsy moth and the brown-tail moth (1912);
has History off applied entomology (somewhat anecdotal) (1930);
The Insect threatens (1931, translated into French by Lucien Berland (1888-1962) and prefaced by Louis Eugene Bouvier (1856-1944) in 1935).

Source

Arnold Mallis (1971). American Entomologists . Rutgers University Close (New Brunswick): xvii + 549 p.
Keir B. Sterling, Richard P. Harmond, George A. Cevasco & Lorne F. Hammond (to dir.) (1997). Biographical dictionary off American and Canadian naturalists and environmentalists . Greenwood Close (Westport): xix + 937 p.

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