Samuel Hubbard Scudder

Samuel Hubbard Scudder
Born (1837-04-13)April 13, 1837
Boston, Massachusetts
Died May 17, 1911(1911-05-17) (aged 74)
Boston, Massachusetts
Nationality American
Occupation Entomologist
Palaeontologist

Samuel Hubbard Scudder (April 13, 1837 – May 17, 1911) was an American entomologist and palaeontologist.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts,[1] Scudder may be most widely known for his essay on the importance of first-hand, careful observation in the natural sciences. The treatise on inductive reasoning, entitled "The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz",[2] reflects his initial experience, learning really to see, under the tutelage of Louis Agassiz at Harvard University.

He graduated at Williams College in 1857[1] and at Harvard University in 1862,[3] was a leading figure in American entomology from 1858, and the first North American insect palaeontologist. He also undertook systematic work with Lepidoptera (almost exclusively butterflies), Orthoptera,[1] Mantodea and Blattodea and fossil arthropods, including the exquisitely preserved butterfly Prodryas persephone.

A student of Mark Hopkins at Williams College and of Louis Agassiz at Harvard University,[1] Scudder was a prolific writer, publishing 791 papers between 1858 and 1902, on insect biogeography and paleobiogeography, insect behavior, ontogeny and phylogeny, insect songs, trace fossils, evolution, insect biology and economic entomology. He also wrote on ethnology, general geology, and geography.

His masterwork of fossil terrestrial arthropod research was the two-volume set Fossil Insects of North America: The Pre-tertiary Insects (1890) (a collection of his previous papers on Paleozoic and Mesozoic insects) and The Tertiary Insects of North America (1890).

He also published comprehensive reviews of the then-known fossil cockroaches of the world (1879), Carboniferous cockroaches of the United States (1890, 1895), and fossil terrestrial arthropods of the world (1886, 1891). Scudder's Nomenclator Zoologicus (1882–1884) was a seminal and comprehensive list of all generic and family names in zoology, including insects.

In other contributions Scudder was successively Curator, Librarian, Custodian, and President of the Boston Society of Natural History (1864–1870,[1] 1880–1887); co-founder of the Cambridge Entomological Club and its journal Psyche (1874); General Secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1875) (Vice-President (1894).); cofounder, editor and guide of the Appalachian Mountain Club (1878);[4] first editor of Science magazine[1] (1883–1885); and United States Geological Survey Paleontologist[1] (1886–1892) among lesser endeavors.

Scudder died in Boston on May 17, 1911.

Works

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Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Scudder, Samuel Hubbard, 1837-1911, Samuel Hubbard Scudder Papers". Record Unit 7249. Smithsonian Institution Archives. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  2. ↑ Scudder, "The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz"; "The Story behind the Story of 'The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz'" Dr. David Howard states that the story appears to derive from versions by well-known students of Professor Agassiz: Scudder and Nathaniel Shaler. "Scudder's version is a fuller, more detailed account than Shaler's."
  3. ↑ New International Encyclopedia
  4. ↑ Leach, William (2013) Butterfly People Pantheon Books ISBN 9780375422935 pg 48
  5. ↑ The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz at www.bethel.edu
  6. ↑ Gallica - Scudder, Samuel Hubbard. Nomenclator zoologicus : an alphabetical list of all generic names that have been employed by naturalists for recent and fossil animals from... at gallica.bnf.fr
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