ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., APRIL, 1921. 



Thomas Bellerby Wilson. 



When a man has made himself a benefactor of the human family by 

 devoting his life and a large fortune to the promotion of science, grati- 

 tude demands that we perpetuate his memory, and uphold his example 

 for the advancement of those sciences for which he lived. Therefore 

 we form this memoir to commemorate the life and character of our 

 late associate THOMAS BELLERBY WILSON. 



So wrote a committee of the Entomological Society of Phila- 

 delphia, in 1865, in an appendix to the fifth volume of the 

 Proceedings of the Society. Similar motives have induced the 

 editors of the NEWS to place Dr. Wilson's portrait on tin- 

 covers of this journal for 1921. Dr. Wilson was not a publish- 

 ing entomologist. He was, among many other things, a col- 

 lector of insects and a word picture of him in this capacity 

 is given in the memoir quoted : 



During his residence in New London [Chester County, Pennsylvania, 

 1833-1841] tradition reports the surprise of the people in that vicinity 

 when they saw him in his long walks along the brooks and through the 

 fields, groves and woods, with his botany box on his back, his ento- 

 mological net in his hands, the handle of his geological hammer ex- 

 tending from his coat-pocket and his hat covered all around with beetles, 

 butterflies and other insects which he had pinned thereon. 



The last item recalls the stories of the famous Napoleonic- 

 General, Comte Dejean, whom Wilson may have seen the year 

 (1830) he studied medicine in Paris and a-t tended the lectures 

 of Cuvier. To the end of his life Wilson accumulated insects 

 and especially Diptera, which he gathered around his home 

 near Newark, Delaware, and, in earlier years, on extensive 

 travels through the eastern United States and Canada. 



I'.ut Wilson's claims to a grateful remembrance by naturalists 

 and entomologists rest upon his gifts of money, hooks, col- 

 lections of natural history and equipment to The- Academy ot 



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