William Dandridge Peck
William Dandridge Peck (born May 8, 1763 in Boston , Province of Massachusetts Bay , † October 8, 1822 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American botanist and zoologist .
Life
William Dandridge Peck was born in Boston in 1763 as the son of a naval architect; his mother died when he was seven years old. He attended Harvard University , which he left in 1782 with a Bachelor of Arts . He then worked briefly as a merchant , but a little later followed his father to a small farm in Kittery , Maine . He had settled there because he felt that his work as a ship architect, which had been requested by the Congress , was not sufficiently appreciated. William Peck then lived almost isolated on his father's farm for 20 years , where he studied botany and zoology , doing research in the fields of ichthyology , entomology and ornithology . In 1793 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1794 he published the first article in the United States on biological systematics , in which he described and systematized four fish . Two years later, he won an award from the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture for his article "The Description and History of the Canker Worm" in which he the kind vernata Paleacrita , a tensioner , erstbeschrieb .
Due to his growing reputation, Peck was appointed first professor of natural history at Harvard University in March 1805 . During his time at Harvard he taught the country's first entomology course; he also spent three years doing research in Europe. Peck died on October 8, 1822 in Cambridge at the age of 59 and held the professorship until his death.
In his honor, William Kirby named a species of butterfly Polites peckius , also known as Peck's Skipper in North America .
Web links
- List of publications on Harvard University Library pages
literature
- Obituary Notice of Professor Peck. In: Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 10th Edition, 2nd Series, Phelps and Farnham, Boston, 1823, pp. 161-170. (Available online at Google Books )
- John L. Capinera: Encyclopedia of Entomology, Volume 4 . 2nd Edition. Springer Science & Business Media, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4020-6242-1 , p. 2775-2776 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sharon Stichter: Peck's Skipper. butterfliesofmassachusetts.net, August 17, 2014, accessed December 18, 2016 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Peck, William Dandridge |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Peck, William D .; Peck, William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American botanist and entomologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 8, 1763 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boston , Massachusetts , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 8, 1822 |
| Place of death | Cambridge , Massachusetts , United States |