Harrison Gray Dyar, Jr.
Harrison Gray Dyar, Jr. | |
---|---|
Born |
New York City, U.S. | February 14, 1866
Died |
January 21, 1929 62) Washington, D.C., U.S. | (aged
Residence | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Citizenship | United States |
Alma mater | B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.A., Columbia University, Ph.D. Columbia University |
Years active | 1889–1929 |
Known for | Scientist, Entomologist |
Parent(s) | Harrison Gray Dyar, Eleonora Rosella Hunt |
Harrison Gray Dyar, Jr., (February 14, 1866 New York City – January 21, 1929, Washington, D.C.), was an American entomologist.
Early life
He was a son of Harrison Gray Dyar and his wife Eleonora Rosella (née Hannum).[1][2] Dyar graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1889 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry. He had begun to study insects as a young teenager,[1][3] and soon after his graduation from college began publishing scientific papers about them, in particular moths of the family Limacodidae,[1] starting a lifelong interest in entomology. He was awarded a Master of Arts degree in biology from Columbia University in 1894, with his thesis on the classification of Lepidoptera, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1895, with his dissertation on airborne bacteria in New York City.[1][4]
Taxonomy
Dyar was a taxonomist who published extensively on moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera), mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae), and sawflies (Hymenoptera: Symphyta) during his working lifetime.[4] His first job was as Assistant Bacteriologist of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University from 1895 to 1897.[4] From 1897 until his death he was Honorary Custodian of Lepidoptera at the U.S. National Museum, Washington, D.C.[4] Dyar was independently wealthy and for a major part of his 31 years at the USNM he worked without compensation; his independence also made it possible for him to travel and collect extensively within North America.[4]
Dyar's Law, a biological rule named for him in recognition of his original observations on the geometric progression in head capsule widths during lepidoptera larval development, is a standard tool for studying immature insects.[1]
Dyar was editor of the Journal of the New York Entomological Society from 1904 to 1907 and of the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington from 1909 to 1912; from 1913 to 1926 he published and edited his own taxonomic journal, Insecutor Inscitiae Menstruus.[4] Dyar and Frederick Knab were primarily responsible for the taxonomic portions of The Mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies, published in four volumes from 1912–1917.[4]
Dyar was also noted for his intellectual and at times acerbic exchanges with fellow entomologists, for example, in correspondence with Clara Southmayd Ludlow.[5] Dyar engaged in "protracted, spectacularly belligerent feud with fellow entomologists".[6]
In 1924, Dyar was commissioned a captain in the Sanitary Department of the U.S. Army Reserve Officers Corps because of his background in the study of mosquitoes.[7]
Personal
Dyar was a bigamist, "for fourteen years he was married to two women, maintaining two families with five children in all."[1][6] He married Zella M. Peabody of Los Angeles, a music teacher in 1889. They had two children.[1] This marriage ended in 1920.[6] But in 1906, using the alias of Wilfred P. Allen, Dyar married Wellesca Pollock.[6] In 1921, now divorced from Peabody, Dyar legally married Pollock; they had three sons.[1]
Pollock was an educator and ardent disciple of the Bahá'í Faith.[1] After his legal marriage to Pollack, Dyar became active in the Bahá'í Faith, and edited an independent Bahá'í journal, Reality, from 1922 until his death.[1]
During the 1920s, Dyar's hobby of tunnel-building was discovered when a truck broke through into a labyrinth of tunnels near his former home in Washington, D.C.[1][2][6]
Dyar was a second cousin of American Civil War soldier and publisher Harrison Gray Otis.[8]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Pamela M. Henson: Dyar, Harrison Gray, Jr., Bahá'í Library Online, http://bahai-library.com/henson_harrison_dyar. Retrieved Nov 5, 2010.
- 1 2 Marc E. Epstein and Pamela M. Henson. 1992. Digging for Dyar, The Man Behind the Myth. American Entomologist 38:148–169.
- ↑ Frank E. Dyer: Dyer Families of New England, Descendants of Thomas Dyer of Weymouth, Mass, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dyer/. Retrieved Nov 5, 2010.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kenneth L. Knight & Ruth B. Pugh. 1974. A Bibliography of Mosquito Writings of H. G. Dyar and Frederick Knab. Mosquito Systematics 6(1): 11–26.
- ↑ Ronald R. Ward. 1987. Biography of Clara Southmayd Ludlow 1852–1924. Mosquito Systematics 19(3): 251–258, edited reprinting of information first published by James B. Kitzmiller: Anopheline Names, Their Derivations and Histories, The Thomas Say Foundation, Vol. VIII, 1982, pp. 316–321.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Foster, William (14 January 2016). Campbell, Philip, ed. "A life of insects and ire". Nature (London: Macmillian Publishers Ltd.) 529 (7585): 152–3. ISSN 0028-0836.
- ↑ Terry L. Carpenter and Terry A. Klein. 2011. 2011 AMCA Memorial Lecture Honoree: Dr. Harrison Gray Dyar Jr. Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association 27(3):336–343.
- ↑ Harrison Gray Dyar, Jr.: A Preliminary Genealogy of the Dyar Family, Gibson Bros., Printers, Washington, D.C., 1903, p. 16.
Further Reading
- Epstein, Marc (2016). Moths, Myths, and Mosquitoes: The Eccentric Life of Harrison Dyar, Jr. Oxford University Press.