in the scientific societies of his time, with stints as vice-president of the American Philosophical Society (1880–1883) and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1873). He was a founder of the American Entomological Society, and a charter member of the National Academy of Sciences. Legacy The genera Lecontella, Lecontellus, Lecontia, and Contia and several hundred species (mostly beetles) are named after him, including a bird, LeConte's thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei), which he discovered while on a beetle-collecting trip to Arizona, and was named after him by George Newbold Lawrence. LeConte communicated with and collected birds and other natural history specimens for Spencer Fullerton Baird, a distant cousin and assistant director and then director of the Smithsonian Institution for a total of 39 years. In turn Baird asked other naturalists to collect beetles for LeConte. In the 1850s, LeConte collected some crystals from a cave in Honduras being mined for bat guano. It was later found to be a new mineral that was named "lecontite" in his honor. Works Catalogue of the Coleoptera of the United States. (1853) Frederick Ernst Melsheimer, revised by Samuel Stehman Haldeman and John Lawrence LeConte Classification of the Coleoptera of North America (1861, 1873) New Species of North American Coleoptera (1866, 1873) Classification of the Coleoptera of North America. Part II (1883) - with George Henry Horn Notes References "John Lawrence LeConte" (1936). Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons. External links Samuel Henshaw (1878) The entomological writings of John L. Leconte.:Dimmock's special bibliography. no. 1 Cambridge, Massachusetts, The editor (George Dimmock), 1878. 1825 births 1883 deaths American entomologists Coleopterists Union Army surgeons Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Scientists from New York City 19th-century American people Mount St. Mary's University alumni Burials at West Laurel Hill Cemetery Members of the American Philosophical Society