Charles V. Riley

Abstract

CHARLES V. RILEY, M.A., Ph.D., whose death on the 14th ult., in consequence of injuries received in a fall from a bicycle in the streets of Washington, was announced in these columns on October 3, was an Englishman, born at Walton-on-Thames in 1843. He emigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen, and settled, as we learn from the Garden and Forest, on a farm in Illinois. Like so many other Americans, who have since made a reputation in science, he served as a soldier in the civil war. Subsequently, after some experience as a journalist, he was appointed State Entomologist of Missouri, a position he occupied nearly ten years. During this period he did excellent work in the investigation of the life-histories of insects injurious to plants, and experiments to discover the most effectual means of destroying them. But one of his earliest papers was on a new genus (Pronubia) of the Tineidæ, and the part it plays in the fertilisation of Yucca.¹ This was an important and interesting contribution to biological science. In 1878 he accepted the post of Entomologist to the United States Department of Agriculture at Washington, where, in the words of the authority cited above, he practically supervised all the entomological work of the Government until his resignation last year. The valuable results of the investigations and experiments conducted by him and his staff, were in part published in occasional bulletins, of which thirty-two appeared between 1883 and 1894, and partly in the now familiar periodical entitled Insect Life, which was established in 1888. Six volumes appeared under his editorship. Dr. Riley was an in-defatigable worker, and his organising and administrative abilities were well exemplified in the department which he so successfully developed.