Alpheus Spring Packard

Alpheus Spring Packard Jr. (February 19, 1839 – February 14, 1905) was an American physician, naturalist, textbook author, paleontologist, and zoologist, specializing in entomology. He was a professor of zoology and geology at Brown University from 1878 to 1905, served on the United States Entomological Commission from 1877 to 1882, and was the chief editor for the journal The American Naturalist from 1881 to 1905. He was elected in 1872 to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and in 1878 to the American Philosophical Society.

Quotes

Morphology.—In order to properly understand Zoology, one should first study Morphology—i.e., the general structure of animals. The student should first thoroughly acquaint himself with the anatomy of a vertebrate animal, such as a frog, as compared with that of a toad or salamander. The examination and comparison of the organs of animals belonging to distinct groups, is called Comparative Anatomy. The study of Morphology also includes the relation of the different organs to one another, and of all to the walls of the body. Finally, we need also to study the composition of the tissues of the different organs; each kind of tissue being formed of different kinds of elements or cells. This department of Comparative Anatomy is called Histology (Greek, ἱστός, web or tissue; λόγος, discourse). It treats of the cell, and the combination of cells into germ-layers, tissues, and organs.
- Zoology for High Schools and Colleges. American science series: Advanced course (6th ed.). Henry Holt & Company. 1888. p. 5. (722 pages; 1st edition 1879; 11th edition 1904)

In France and Germany private persons, entomologists such as Perris in France, and especially Ratzeburg in Germany, have published beautifully illustrated general works of very great interest and value upon forest insects, and their works have done immense service in those countries, where an enlightened government and an intelligent people have felt the importance of building up schools of forestry and of making laws compelling due efforts towards repressing the more injurious forest insects.
Kaltenbach, in his work entitled "Die Planzenfeinde aus der Klasse der Insekten," or the Insect-enemies of Plants, has enumerated, in a closely-printed volume of 848 pages, the species of insects preying upon the different trees and plants of all sorts of Central Europe. The number of insects found upon some kinds of forest trees is astonishing, though it is to be remembered that all kinds are not equally destructive, the most injurious and deadly forms being comparatively few.
Kaltenbach enumerates 537 species of insects injurious to the oak, and 107 obnoxious to the elm. The poplars afford a livelihood to 264 kinds of insects; the willows yield food to 396 species; the birches harbor 270 species; the alder, 119; the beech 154; the hazelnut, 97, and the hornbeam, 88.
- Insects Injurious to Forest and Shade Trees. Issue 7 of Bulletin of the United States Entomological Commission. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1881. p. 4. (275 pages)

Our knowledge of the interior of the Labrador peninsula is still so scanty, owing to its inaccessibility, its unnavigable rivers, the shortness of the summer season, and the lack of game, as well as the enormous numbers of black flies and mosquitoes, than any description of this country must long remain imperfect. The only scientific explorer of the interior is Professor Hind, who ascended the river Moisie, which, however, is a confluent of the St. Lawrence, and is in fact, situated only near the borders of Labrador, in the province of Quebec. None of the larger rivers of Labrador have been explored to near their sources; and no one except Indians and but a single employee of the Hudson Bay Company (Mr.McLean) has ever crossed any considerable portion of the interior.
- The Labrador Coast, a Journal of Two Summer Cruises to that Region: With Notes on Its Early Discovery, on the Eskimo, on Its Physical Geography, Geology and Natural History. New York: N.D.C. Hodges. 1891. p. 1. (513 pages)