PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



VOL. 24 DEC., 1922 No. 9 



DR. DAVID SHARP, the only honorary member of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of Washington, died August 27, 1922, at Brocken- 

 hurst, England, at the age of 82. Although primarily a very 

 distinguished Coleopterist, he was not only a very broad entomolo- 

 gist, but in general zoology, especially in the matter of nomencla- 

 ture and its principles, he was one of the foremost of English 

 workers. It is not too much to say that at the time of his death 

 he was the most distinguished of all living entomologists, a fact 

 which was recognized not only by our own Society but by practi- 

 cally all of the prominent entomological societies of the world. 



Beginning with 1865, several hundred papers by Sharp have 

 been published, the most important being his great monograph 

 of the aquatic beetles (Dytiscidae) and the remarkable work by 

 himself and his son-in-law, Frederick Muir, on the comparative 

 anatomy of the male genital tube in Coleoptera, which opened a 

 new vista in the study of the phylogeny of the beetles. 



His full bibliography will no doubt be published by his English 

 colleagues, but as ours is an American society we should mention 

 some of his contributions to the knowledge of the Coleoptera of 

 the New World. In 1876 his monograph of the Staphylinidae 

 of the Amazon Valley was published; in 1885 "On the Coleoptera 

 of the Hawaiian Islands by the Rev. T. Blackburn and Dr. D. 

 Sharp," more fully extended in the "Fauna Hawaiiensis"; a large 

 and important portion of the " Biologia Centrali-Americana" 

 comprising several families. He also was the chief organizer of 

 the British Exploration of the Lesser Antilles of which he pub- 

 lished as a sort of introduction the Zoological Bibliography of the 

 Lesser Antilles (1888). 



In the North American entomological literature only a small 

 but interesting paper can be found (Journal N. Y. Ent. Soc., 

 1918), "On the New York Weevil (Ithycerus noveboracensis}," 

 and there is also an extract from a letter by him on the reputed 

 occurrence of the Palm Weevil (Rhynchophonis palmarum) in 

 California. From this latter note we learn that in 1867 or 1868, 

 in connection with the late Mr. E. Brown and his friend Mr. G. R. 

 Crotch, he financed a small coleopterological exploration by send- 

 ing an experienced collector, Mr. J. R. Hardy, to California. 



His noteworthy services as Editor of the Zoological Record, 

 and his two wonderful volumes on the Insecta, published in the 

 Cambridge datura 1 History and which are to be found in almost 

 daily use in every entomological laboratory in America, have 

 e;iven him an enduring tame among biologists. His death has left 

 a uap which will probably never be filled by any single man. 



