James Henry Emerton
Encyclopedia
Arachnology
Arachnology is the scientific study of spiders and related animals such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, collectively called arachnids. However, the study of ticks and mites is sometimes not included in arachnology, but is called Acarology...
.
Early life
Emerton was born at Salem, MassachusettsSalem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
, on March 31, 1847. He was rather frail, and a young helper in his father's drug store, George F. Markoe, interested the boy in outdoor life. They collected plants, insects and shore invertebrates and at the age of fifteen he was frequently visiting the Essex Institute
Essex Institute
The Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts, was "a literary, historical and scientific society." It maintained a museum, library, historic houses; arranged educational programs; and issued numerous scholarly publications...
, where he became acquainted with A. S. Packard
Alpheus Spring Packard
Alpheus Spring Packard, LL.D. was an American entomologist and palaeontologist. He was the son of Alpheus Spring Packard, Sr. and the brother of William Alfred Packard. He was born in Brunswick, Maine and was Professor of Zoology and Geology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island from...
, F. W. Putnam
Frederic Ward Putnam
Frederic Ward Putnam was an American naturalist and anthropologist.-Biography:...
, John Robinson, Caleb Cooke, and others who later became more or less prominent students of Natural History.
From the first, he showed much skill in drawing and made sketches of a great variety of natural objects. Of these early drawings, there are many in Packard's Guide and forty quarto plates in Watson and Eaton Botany of the Fortieth Parallel published in 1871.
Professional life
He was elected to the Boston Society of Natural HistoryBoston Society of Natural History
The Boston Society of Natural History in Boston, Massachusetts, was an organization dedicated to the study and promotion of natural history. It published a scholarly journal and established a museum. In its first few decades, the society occupied several successive locations in Boston's Financial...
in 1870, and later, 1873-1874 was an assistant in the Museum. While here he prepared the notes to Hentz
Nicholas Marcellus Hentz
Nicholas Marcellus Hentz was a French American arachnologist. Hentz was born in Versailles, France. He immigrated to the United States in 1816 and became a pioneering zoologist in the field of arachnology....
's spiders of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the article on cave spiders of Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
and Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(1875).
He had already decided to study spiders, had collected in over 100 localities in the New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
states, and had amassed a collection of more than 300 species. Early in 1875 he left the Boston Society to spend more than a year in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. While there he was enrolled as a student for a short time at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
(October, 1875 to April, 1876) and later (May to July,
1876) at the University of Jena, but apparently he spent much time collecting spiders and becoming acquainted with the arachnologists of Europe, particularly O. P. Cambridge
Octavius Pickard-Cambridge
The Reverend Octavius Pickard-Cambridge FRS was an English clergyman and zoologist.Pickard-Cambridge was born in Bloxworth rectory, Dorset, the fifth son of Revd George Pickard, rector and squire of Bloxworth: the family changed their name to Pickard-Cambridge in 1848...
, Simon
Eugène Simon
Eugène Simon was a French arachnologist. His many taxonomic contributions include categorizing and naming many spiders, as well as creating genera such as Anelosimus, Psellocoptus and Phlogius....
, Koch, Thorell and Ohlert. He had taken to Europe his collection of New England spiders and from Leipzig in December, 1875, wrote an article comparing them with those of the European fauna.
Returning, he again engaged in drawing and prepared many of the colored plates in Eaton
Daniel Cady Eaton
Daniel Cady Eaton was an American botanist and author. He gained his bachelor's degree at Yale University, then went on to Harvard University where he studied with Asa Gray...
's Ferns of North America and also many in Packard's Monograph of the Geometridae.
In 1877, he gave eight lectures on zoology and six on spiders at the Summer School of Biology in Salem, and in 1878 delivered another series of six lectures on spiders. He became a curator in the Museum of the Peabody Academy of Science
Peabody Academy of Science
The Peabody Academy of Science in Salem, Massachusetts, "was organized in 1868, having received funds ... from George Peabody of London ... for the 'promotion of science and useful knowledge in the county of Essex.'" It was incorporated by "Asa Gray, of Cambridge, William C. Endicott, of Salem,...
where he spent an hour each day with the visitors and prepared a Guide to the Museum. In 1879 he also gave instruction in the zoological laboratory at Salem.
He spent some time at Albany, N. Y., making drawings for Prof. A. Hall, and later (about 1880) went to New Haven, where he was appointed assistant to Professor A. E. Verrill. He made a host of drawings for Verrill, and prepared the famous models of the great squid
Squid
Squid are cephalopods of the order Teuthida, which comprises around 300 species. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, a mantle, and arms. Squid, like cuttlefish, have eight arms arranged in pairs and two, usually longer, tentacles...
and octopus
Octopus
The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...
now in the Museum of Comparative Zoology
Museum of Comparative Zoology
The Museum of Comparative Zoology, full name "The Louis Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology", often abbreviated simply to "MCZ", is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of three museums which collectively comprise the Harvard Museum...
at Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
and in the National Museum of Natural History
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
at Washington. For these models he was awarded a medal with an elaborately engraved certificate at the International Fisheries Congress in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1882.
At New Haven in 1884 he married Mary A. Hills, and shortly thereafter moved to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, which was henceforth his home. His wife died in 1898.
He did much modeling for medical colleges and made drawings for many persons; as Minot
Charles Sedgwick Minot
Charles Sedgwick Minot was an American anatomist.-Life:Charles Sedgwick Minot was born December 25, 1852 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His mother was Catharine "Kate" Maria Sedgwick and father was William Minot II...
's Textbook of Embryology, Verrill
Addison Emery Verrill
Addison Emery Verrill was an American zoologist. He was a student of Louis Agassiz at Harvard University and graduated in 1862...
's Marine Invertebrates, Scudder
Samuel Hubbard Scudder
Samuel Hubbard Scudder was an American entomologist and palaeontologist.Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Scudder may be most widely known for his essay on the importance of first-hand, careful observation in the natural sciences...
's Butterflies of New England, Peckham
George and Elizabeth Peckham
George Williams Peckham and Elizabeth Maria Gifford Peckham were early American teachers, taxonomists, ethologists, arachnologists, and entomologists, specializing in animal behavior and in the study of jumping spiders and wasps.-Lives and careers:George Peckham was born in Albany,...
's papers on spiders, and many for the U. S. Fish Commission.
He was active in various natural history organizations and became an important factor in furthering interest in local science. He began to travel more widely, visiting the West Indies in 1893 with Alexander Agassiz, going with Morse in 1902 to the Southern States, in 1905 to the Californian Mountains, in 1914 to the Canadian Rockies
Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies comprise the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains range. They are the eastern part of the Canadian Cordillera, extending from the Interior Plains of Alberta to the Rocky Mountain Trench of British Columbia. The southern end borders Idaho and Montana of the USA...
, in 1920 to the Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...
Region. On these and numerous shorter trips he industriously collected spiders.
He became much interested in a Federation of New England Natural History Societies, and this he considered as the most useful way of stimulating interest in Natural History. He was the Secretary and principal support of this society until his death.
He always seemed to be in good health, and collected spiders only a few months before his death, December 5, 1931.
Aside from being a naturalist he was an artist for the sake of art. He painted hundreds of water colors, often depicting the sea, the shore, or ships. For several seasons this was done at Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
, and in later years he went regularly in July to Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
for painting. He frequently exhibited before art societies, and lived for many years in an artist's studio apartment.
His principal interest and work was on the taxonomy and distribution of the spiders of New England and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. His method of sifting leaves, moss and detritus brought to light great numbers of the smaller forms. At first he sent these to O. P. Cambridge in England, who described them; later he began his famous series of New England Spiders, publishing the Theridiidae
Theridiidae
Theridiidae is a large family of spiders, also known as the tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders and comb-footed spiders. The diverse family includes over 2200 species in over 100 genera) of three-dimensional space-web-builders found throughout the world...
in 1882. The plates in these papers were especially valuable; those in the second part (Epeiridae) containing some of his finest drawings. It is these illustrations that give the characteristic appearance of the parts which have given to Emerton much of his importance as an arachnologist. Cambridge, in reviewing Hentz's Spiders of the United States (Nature, 1876) refers to Emexton's two plates as follows:-"In point of accurate detail and artistic finish these figures are immeasurably in advance of those engraved from Hentz's drawings."
The series on New England spiders was followed by four supplements, two papers on Canadian spiders and numerous smaller articles, describing in all over 350 species, always with useful illustrations. No other writer has so thoroughly figured his species, old as well as new. In several papers he traced the distribution of certain northern spiders. Several of his early articles dealt with the habits of spiders and, even to the last, he loved to watch each autumn for the flying spiders. He gave to the Museum of Comparative Zoology
Museum of Comparative Zoology
The Museum of Comparative Zoology, full name "The Louis Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology", often abbreviated simply to "MCZ", is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of three museums which collectively comprise the Harvard Museum...
the first set of the types of his descriptions.
Taxa names after Emerton
Among the taxa named after J. H. Emerton are:- Emertonia Wilson, 1932 (copepodCopepodCopepods are a group of small crustaceans found in the sea and nearly every freshwater habitat. Some species are planktonic , some are benthic , and some continental species may live in limno-terrestrial habitats and other wet terrestrial places, such as swamps, under leaf fall in wet forests,...
) - Autolytus emertoni Verrill, 1881 (polychaetePolychaeteThe Polychaeta or polychaetes are a class of annelid worms, generally marine. Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are made of chitin. Indeed, polychaetes are sometimes referred to as bristle worms. More than 10,000...
)
and the gastropods
- Gymnobela emertoniGymnobela emertoniGymnobela emertoni is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Conidae, the cone snails and their allies....
Verrill & Smith, 1884 - Pleurotomella emertonii Verrill & Smith, 1884
- Turbonilla emertoni Verrill, 1882
- Polycerella emertoni Verrill, 1881