Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/273

Rh with, others by the same author, was published in the first report of the survey.

Mr. Packard had now fully decided to devote himself to zoology, and, in order to widen his views and increase his knowledge, he went to Cambridge to study with Agassiz. Here for three years he devoted himself to entomology and made such progress that during the latter part of the time he held the position of assistant. He laid a broad foundation for his future studies in entomology, and in a paper published in 1863, under the title "Synthetic Types in Insects," he introduced new views into the classification of these forms. From that date to the present time not a year has passed without numerous articles from his pen, a mere list of which would occupy more space than can be devoted to this sketch.

At the same time that he was studying zoölogy he was reading medicine and attending lectures during the winter term at the medical school connected with his Alma Mater, where in 1864 he passed the necessary examinations and received his doctor's degree. In the summer of the same year he set sail again for Labrador, this time in company with the marine artist Bradford, to collect materials for a memoir of the geology and natural history of that then little-known region. On his former trip he had visited only the southern portion of the coast. This time he went as far north as Hopedale, dredging at favorable localities along the shore, and everywhere paying attention to the geology and especially to the former traces of glacial action.

The results of this trip were not, however, to be immediately worked up, for on his return to Brunswick he enlisted for three years as assistant surgeon in the First Regiment of Maine Veteran Volunteers, and marched away to join the Army of the Potomac, While in Virginia the scientific passion ruled strong, and many an insect fell a victim to the collecting-bottle. Fortunately, before the three years for which he enlisted were over, the war came to an end, and Dr. Packard was mustered out in July, 1865, after a military and medical experience of ten months.

He now returned to Boston, and for a while acted as librarian and custodian at the Boston Society of Natural History, at the same time working up the results of his Labrador explorations, which were published as a memoir by the Boston Society of Natural History in 1867, and which still remain the chief source of our knowledge of the fauna and geology of that region. The stay in Boston was, however, of short duration, for at this time the Essex Institute, at Salem, Mass., was displaying great activity in the line of natural history, and negotiations were in progress with the London banker, George Peabody, looking toward an endowment for science in Essex County. These plans rapidly