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VOL. XXV. LONDON, NOVEMBER, 1893. No. 11. 



THE LATE PROFESSOR WEST WOOD. 



We are much pleased to be able to give in this issue a likeness of the 

 very eminent entomologist, Professor Westvvood, for which we are in- 

 debted to the kindness of the publishers of the Illustrated London News. 



John Obadiah Westwood, M.A., F.L.S., etc., was born at Sheffield, 

 England, on the 22nd of December, 1805, and died shortly after com- 

 pleting his 87th year, on the 2nd of January last. His father was a die- 

 sinker at Sheffield, but afterwards removed to Lichfield. When nearly 16 

 years of age, he went to London to be articled to a solicitor, and though 

 he devoted his attention more to the study of natural history than of law, 

 he was admitted as a solicitor and became partner in a firm. Having 

 some private means, which he augmented by writing and drawing, he was 

 enabled to neglect his profession and give himself up almost entirely to 

 entomology and archaeology. 



To quote Mr. McLachlan's obituary notice in The Entomologists' 

 Monthly Magazine, " it was probably by his rare, artistic talent that he 

 acquired much of his justly great reputation. His drawings of insects 

 were masterpieces of accuracy without the slightest attempt at effect, and 

 rapidly executed ; few have equalled him m correct delineation. There 

 certainly never has been an entomologist who left behind him so much 

 evidence, in practical work, of his ability to delineate insects, even to the 

 most minute dissections. But Westwood was much more than an artist 

 in entomology. There probably never has existed, and, in the present 

 state of the science, there never can again exist, one who had so much 

 general knowledge, both from personal investigation and a study of the 

 works of others \ one who was less of a specialist in the modern accep- 

 tation of the term. It is true he was a specialist, but it was in the way 

 of taking up small groups in all orders, and working them out thoroughly, 

 his artistic talent giving merit and force to those small monograph?. 

 Under a somewhat brusque manner was concealed a hearty sympathy for 

 all real workers, and, if he offended, it was commonly in the way of 

 pointing out to would-be introducers, etc., of supposed novelties that 

 some one or other had already made similar observations, his vast mem- 



