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Early life

Packard was one of four sons of Alpheus Spring Packard Sr. (1798–1884) and the brother of William Alfred Packard. He was born in Brunswick, Maine, and went to the Bowdoin College where his father was a professor of Greek and Latin. His mother, Frances Elizabeth, who died shortly after his birth was the daughter of Rev. Appleton who had served as president of Bowdoin College, and Alpha as he was known was raised by an aunt He was encouraged by Paul A. Chadbourne of Williams College to take up zoology. As a member of the Lyceum of Natural History he joined an expedition to Labrador and Greenland. In 1861 he received his bachelors degree. He went to Cambridge and studied under Louis Agassiz. His first publication in 1863 was on types in insects. He also studied for his medical exams and received a doctor's degree in 1864. He made another trip to Labrador along with the artist William Bradford and took a special interest in geology. was Professor of Zoology and Geology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1878 until his death. He was a vocal proponent of Neo-Lamarckism during the eclipse of Darwinism.²

Career

After college, he joined the Maine state as an entomologist. From 1862 to 1865 he was enlisted into the First Regiment of Maine Volunteers as an assistant surgeon. During the marches he collected insects. His chief work was the classification and anatomy of arthropods, and contributions to economic entomology, zoogeography, and the phylogeny and metamorphoses of insects. At Boston he became a librarian and custodian for the Boston Society of Natural History working also on his Labrador collections. In 1866 he went to the Peabody Academy of Science along with Putnam, Morse and Hyatt. He left in 1878 to accept a position of professor of Zoology and Geology at Brown University. Packard was appointed to the United States Entomological Commission in 1877 where he served with Charles Valentine Riley and Cyrus Thomas.³ He wrote school textbooks, such as Zoölogy for High Schools and Colleges (eleventh edition, 1904). His Monograph of the Bombycine Moths of North America was published in three parts (1895, 1905, 1915, edited by T. D. A. Cockerell).

He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1878.⁴

Personal life

Packard married Elizabeth Darby Walcott, daughter of Samuel B. Walcott in October 1867 in Salem, Massachusetts.⁵⁶⁷ They would have four children: Martha Walcott, Alpheus Appleton, Elizabeth Darby, and Frances Elizabeth.⁸⁹ Elizabeth Darby would die at the age of eight.¹⁰ He died on February 14, 1905, in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife and children outliving him.¹¹

Writings

• Report on the insects collected on the Penobscot and Alleguash Rivers, during August and September, 1861, Sixth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture, Augusta, Maine (pp. 373-376) (1861)
• Guide to the Study of Insects (1869; third edition, 1872)
• The Mammoth Cave and its Inhabitants (1872), with F. W. Putnam
• Life-History of Animals (1876)
• A Naturalist on the Labrador Coast (1891)
• Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution: His Life and Work (1901), French translation, 1903.
• Alpheus Spring Packard (1886). First Lessons in Zoology: Adapted for Use in Schools …. Holt.

Notes

• Cockerell, T.D.A. (1920). "Biographical Memoir of Alpheus Spring Packard 1839-1905" (PDF). Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. 9: 181–236.
• Essig, E. O. (1931). A History of Entomology. MacMillan Company. pp. 727-729.
• Henshaw, Samuel (1887). The Entomological Writings of Dr. Alpheus Spring Packard. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Division of Entomology. p. 5. Alpheus Spring Packard.
• Mallis, Arnold (1971). American Entomologists. Rutgers University Press. pp. 296–302. ISBN 0-8135-0686-7.
• Mead, A. D. (1918). "Alpheus Spring Packard (1839-1905)". Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 53 (10): 848–850. JSTOR 25130026.
• Sorenson, W. Conner (1995). Brethren of the Net: American Entomologists, 1840-1880. University of Alabama Press.
• Sterling, Keir B., ed. (1997). "Packard, Alpheus Spring Jr.". Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists. Greenwood Press.

External links

• The entomological writings of Dr. Alpheus Spring Packard
• Works by Alpheus Spring Packard at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Alpheus Spring Packard at the Internet Archive
• Works by Alpheus Spring Packard at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Gallica Two works by Packard
• Brunoniana Biography
• Nomina circumscribentia insectorum On the phylogeny of the Lepidoptera. Zoologischer Anzeiger, 18 (465): 228-236 1895.

References

1. Cockerell (1920) ↩

2. Sorenson (1995) ↩

3. Mallis (1971) ↩

4. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-05-12. https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=1878&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced ↩

5. Kingsley, John Sterling (June 23, 1888). "Sketch of Alpheus Spring Packard". Popular Science Monthly. Vol. 33. New York, New York: D. Appleton & Company. Retrieved March 24, 2023. In 1867 Dr. Packard was married to Elizabeth Derby, the daughter of the late Samuel B. Walcott, of Salem, Mass. He has four children. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_33/June_1888/Sketch_of_Alpheus_Spring_Packard ↩

6. Henshaw, Samuel (1887). The entomological writings of Dr. Alpheus Spring Packard. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. p. 5. https://archive.org/details/entomologicalwri16hens/page/4/mode/2up ↩

7. Cockerell, Thomas Dru Alison (1920). Biographical Memoir of Alpheus Spring Packard, 1839-1905. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences. p. 194. https://books.google.com/books?id=6R0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA194 ↩

8. "332 South Main Street". Andover Historic Preservation. Archived from the original on September 26, 2020. Retrieved March 24, 2023. https://preservation.mhl.org/332-south-main-street ↩

9. Cockerell, Thomas Dru Alison (1920). Biographical Memoir of Alpheus Spring Packard, 1839-1905. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences. p. 194. https://books.google.com/books?id=6R0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA194 ↩

10. Cockerell, Thomas Dru Alison (1920). Biographical Memoir of Alpheus Spring Packard, 1839-1905. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences. p. 194. https://books.google.com/books?id=6R0XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA194 ↩

11. Kingsley, John Sterling (March 17, 1905). "Alpheus Spring Packard". Science. 21 (533): 401, 404. Bibcode:1905Sci....21..401K. doi:10.1126/science.21.533.401. PMID 17738738. Retrieved March 14, 2023. https://books.google.com/books?id=goAtAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA401 ↩