Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/182

 guages and pirated in American editions. Stephens received a gold medal from the emperor of Russia.

In 1832 Stephens became editor of the ‘Quarterly Journal of Agriculture,’ and he continued till 1852 to edit the ‘Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland,’ of which he had been a member since 1826. In his later years he sat for a long period on the society's council. He was a corresponding member of the Société Centrale et Impériale d'Agriculture de France and of the Royal Agricultural Society of Galicia. Stephens died on 5 July 1874 at Bonnington.

He wrote: 
 * 1) ‘The Book of the Farm,’ 3 vols. 1842–4, which soon achieved a recognised position as the standard work on practical agriculture. Several editions of it have appeared, the fourth edition, by Mr. James Macdonald, being published at Edinburgh in 3 vols., 1889–91. It was reprinted in America (New York, 1846–7, 1851), and again in 1858, under the title of ‘The Farmer's Guide to Scientific and Practical Agriculture,’ with an appendix by John Pitkin Norton, the first professor of agricultural chemistry in Yale College.
 * 2) ‘A Manual of Practical Draining,’ 1846 (3rd edit. 1848), in which the views of thorough draining, first popularised by James Smith of Deanston, were explained at length, and other systems, including that of Elkington, discussed.
 * 3) ‘The Yester deep Land-culture,’ 1855, giving an account of the improvements which had been carried on since 1832 by the Marquis of Tweeddale on his estates at Yester, by means of thorough draining, subsoil, and steam ploughing.
 * 4) ‘A Catechism of Practical Agriculture,’ 1856, written for the instruction of children, and founded on the ‘Book of the Farm.’
 * 5) ‘The Book of Farm Implements and Machines,’ 1858, by Stephens, in conjunction with Scott Burn and James Slight.
 * 6) ‘The Book of Farm Buildings,’ 1861, in conjunction with Scott Burn.
 * 7) ‘Physiology at the Farm,’ 1867, the general plan and arrangement of which rested with Stephens, though ‘the execution of that plan in all its details, with the exception of such as were of a purely practical nature,’ was performed by Dr. William Seller.
 * 8) ‘On Non-nitrogenised Food, in a physiological point of view,’ 1867; a small pamphlet, the joint work of Seller and Stephens, defending from an attack in the ‘Field’ certain statements which had been made in ‘Physiology at the Farm’ concerning the nutritive powers of nitrogen.

STEPHENS, JAMES FRANCIS (1792–1852), entomologist, the only son of Captain William James Stephens, R.N. (d. August 1799), and his wife, Mary Peck Stephens (afterwards Mrs. Dallinger), was born at Shoreham, Sussex, on 16 Sept. 1792. He was educated at the Bluecoat school at Hertford and at Christ's Hospital, to which he was presented by [q. v.], bishop of Durham. He entered the school on 15 May 1800, and quitted it on 16 Sept. 1807, when he was placed by his uncle, Admiral Stephens, at the admiralty office, Somerset House. His love for entomology showed itself in his schooldays, his attention being divided between it and natural philosophy and electricity until the winter of 1809. At that date he began a ‘Catalogue of British Animals,’ that was carried up to 1812 in manuscript. From 1815 to 1825 his spare time was mainly given to ornithology, and vols. ix. to xiv. of the ‘General Zoology,’ which had been begun by Dr. [q. v.], or the greater part of the class Aves, were written by him.

In 1818, at the request of the trustees of the British Museum, Stephens was granted leave from his office to assist Dr. [q. v.] in arranging the insect collection. From that time forth he devoted himself more especially to British insects, and prepared a catalogue and a descriptive account of them. In May 1827 the first part of his ‘Illustrations of British Entomology’ (4to, London) appeared, followed in August 1829 by ‘A systematic Catalogue of British Insects’ (8vo, London). In 1832 he was induced to take proceedings in chancery for the protection of his copyright against [q. v.], whose ‘Conspectus of British Butterflies and Moths’ was to a great extent an abstract of his volumes on Lepidoptera; but he lost his case. The feeling, however, of his scientific friends was so strongly in his favour that a subscription was raised towards defraying his legal expenses. The ‘Illustrations’ were persevered with up to 1837, when eleven volumes had been completed, and a supplement was issued in 1846. After his retirement from the admiralty in 1845 Stephens busied himself at