Vernon Lyman Kellogg, American zoologist, studied at the
University of Kansas which awarded him the degrees Bachelor of Arts (AB, 1889)
and Master of Science (MS, 1892). He also took special courses in entomology
and biology at Cornell University (1891-1893), the University of Leipzig (1893, 1897), and in Paris (1904, 1908).
In 1890 he became assistant professor of entomology at the University of Kansas
and was promoted to associate professor in 1893. The next year he became
assistant professor of entomology at Stanford University, was promoted to
associate professor in 1895, and to full professor in 1896. In 1906 he was
appointed in addition as professor of bionomics at Stanford, holding both chairs
to 1920. During World War I (1914-1918) he was the director of the American
Committee for Relief in Belgium, stationed in Brussels (1915-1916), then
assistant to the United States Food Administration (1917-1919), and from 1918
to 1921 with the American Relief Administration. He was decorated by the
governments of both France and Belgium. From 1919 to 1931 he was the permanent
secretary of the National Research Council in Washington, but then had to
resign owing to poor health. He was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by the
University of California (1918) and Oberlin College (1922).
Kellogg has been described as a wise, generous and kindly
man with a brilliant and versatile mind. He was a very popular teacher, with a
special interest in the evolutionary history of birds, and was an authority on
the Order Mallophaga (bird lice). His only direct contribution to southern
African science was a paper by him and G.F. Ferris on “Anoplura and Mallophaga
from Zululandâ€, published in the Annals
of the Durban Museum (1914-1917, Vol. 1, pp. 147-158). [The Anopleura are
an order of blood-sucking lice found on mammals]. Altogether he published over
200 books and pamphlets on a wide variety of subjects, including American insects (1905 and later
editions), Darwinism today (1907), The Anopleura and Mallophaga of North
American mammals (with G.F. Ferris, 1915), and introductory textbooks of
zoology, insect anatomy, and evolution.
