Maria Louisa Pike

Born in England, her father was Benjamin Hadley, British Commissioner to South Africa.

She was private secretary to her father for several years, and employed much of her spare time in studying and making sketches of the flora of South Africa.

[2] She went to Mauritius in 1870 and became acquainted with Nicolas Pike, U.S. consul, who was engaged in collecting natural history specimens for the Louis Agassiz Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[2] She assisted him in the classification of over 800 species of fish, of which she made many colored sketches.

[2][3] She produced color illustrations of a large collection of spiders made by her husband, and also made a nearly complete set of pen-and-ink drawings of North American snakes.