He was born at Gloversville, Fulton County, New York. He graduated from Cornell University in 1910 with a degree in entomology. He married the entomologist Alzada Comstock, daughter of the entomologist John Henry Comstock, in 1915, and they lived at the Comstock House on the Cornell campus. He spent his entire professional career at Cornell University, where he was Chairman of the Department of Entomology from 1946 until his retirement in 1955.
His principal work was on the taxonomy and classification of crane flies, and he wrote, coauthored, or edited 16 monographs on crane flies, including the multi-volume Catalog of the Diptera of North America and A Catalog of the Diptera of the Americas South of the United States (with Lloyd V. Knutson and Miguel Alvárez del Toro, 1962).[5] He is credited with naming over 7500 new species (almost 10% of all crane fly species), and at the time of his death, he had described more crane fly species than all other crane fly taxonomists combined.[4] He traveled widely throughout the Americas and the Caribbean to study crane flies.
He was a member of many scientific organizations, including the Entomological Society of America (President 1943), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society of Naturalists (President 1956).[1][7][8] He received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1928, and he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Lund, Sweden, in 1949.[9]
He died in Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York.