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Vol.13: no.l
WILLIAM PHILLIPS COMSTOCK (1880-1956)
A full account of the life and entomological work of W. P. Comstock has been published elsewhere by C. F. DOS Passos (Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc. 64: 1-5; 1957). That account includes an excellent portrait and a bibliography listing the 32 published works of Mr. Comstock. Mr. dos Passos has kindly allowed us to summarize his biographical sketch; News readers needing fuller details are referred to the 1957 article.
Comstock was born in New York City on 1 March 1880. He lived most of his life in and near the city. He was educated at the Horace Mann School and then Columbia University, from which he received the B. A. degree in 1903. From about 1910 to 1932 he was in the construction business, but with the depression he gave it up and turned more fully to his life-long interest in the Lepidoptera. This had been fostered by his close friend F. E. Watson. From 1934 to 1937 he was Research Assistant in entomology at the Newark (New Jersey) Museum, and from 1937 to his death he was Research Associate in the Department of Insects and Spiders of the American Museum of Natural History. Aside from a 1920 paper co-authored with Watson, all of his publications appeared from 1909-14 and 1940-52. Many were on his favorite group, the New World Lycaenidae, and he wrote important taxonomic studies of the butterflies of the Antilles, Ancea (with F. Johnson), Ascia, and Heliconius charitonius (with F. M. Brown). At the time of his death his monograph of the genus Ancea and its near relatives was awaiting publication and has not yet appeared. This is the magnum opus of his life.
Mr. Comstock joined the Lepidopterists' Society in 1948; he was also a member of the New York (President 1943), Brooklyn, and Newark Entomological Societies.
His passing on 23 September 1956 in Neptune, New Jersey, came after a long illness.
Charles L. Remington