36 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



IN MEMORIAM— R. J. WEITH. 



Born September 15th, 1847, i" Wroutke, Prussia; died September 

 15th, 1902, in Elkhart, Indiana. A (ew words of biography, together 

 with the sad intelh'gence of his death, have already appeared in these 

 pages ; but it seems fitting that the life of one who was well known to 

 many entomologists in America and Europe as an accurate observer, an 

 indefatigable worker, a valued correspondent, and a sincere friend, should 

 receive more than a passing notice. 



From his son, Mr. Louis E. Weith, I have obtained some further 

 facts. At an early age he was apprenticed as a barber, and from the age 

 of thirteen until a short time before his death he followed this business. 

 It was while at school, prior to his thirteenth year, that he acquired that 

 love for nature which was ever afterward the passion of his life. 



At twenty-five he came to New York ; thence he went to New 

 Orleans, afterwards to Memphis, to Chicago, and then to South Bend, 

 Indiana, where he was married. Thereafter he removed to Elkhart., where 

 he resided until his death. 



His knowledge of entomology and his skill as a field naturalist were 

 obtained by the devotion of all his spare moments (which were all too few) 

 to these ends. His chief subject of study was the parasitic Hymenoptera. 

 Of his work in this field I will leave others to speak. During the last few 

 years of his life he took up, with great enthusiasm and success, the study 

 of the life-histories of Odonata, Plecoptera and Ephemerid?e ; and it is of 

 some of the qualities of the work he did in this field that I wish to speak. 

 He began by collecting and contributing data for Williamson's Dragonflies 

 of Indiana. My correspondence with him began when he, having learned 

 that I was seeking to obtain the immature stages of a dragonfly of peculiar 

 and restricted distribution that he had found near his home, wrote me, 

 offering to find these stages for me, if I would direct his efforts. I gladly 

 wrote the few suggestions necessary, and he found the specimens wanted. 

 At mv solicitation he recorded his observations of that time for the readers 

 of this magazine, in Vol. XXXIII., pp. 252-254. During the summer of 

 1902 he studied with great diligence the life-histories of the Stoneflies and 

 Mayflies of his own locality, and made here other important discoveries 

 that still remain to be published. 



His letters, which came thick and fast during the collecting season, 

 for he was continually sending specimens, were marked by an impetuous 

 desire to know where were the gaps in our knowledge, in order that he 



