THE CAN^ADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 255 



(Dbituavii. 



The sad intelligence of the death of that distinguished Entomologist, 

 Francis Walker, of London, England, conveyed in a brief notice in our 

 last, will, we know, have brought grief to the hearts of all those who have 

 been favored with tlie correspondence of that genial-hearted man. His 

 continued and disinterested kindness towards all those with whom he had 

 to do has endeared him to many. Although we never had the ]jleasure 

 of a personal acc^aaintance with the deceased, yet to ourselves personally, 

 as well as to our Society, he has always been among the truest and 

 kindest friends we have had, ever ready to do us any service in his power. 

 His death leaves a void in our circle which it Avill be hard to fill. The 

 following Ijrief sketch of his career and his unceasing labors, written by 

 one who knew him well, will be read with interest : 



It has become my painful duty to record that Francis Walker, the most 

 volummous and most industrious writer on Entomology this country has 

 ever produced, expired at his residence. Elm Hall. Wanstead, on the 5th 

 of October, 1874, sincerely lamented by all wlio enjoyed the pleasure and 

 advantage of his friendship. He was the seventh son, and the tenth and 

 youngest child, of Mr. John Walker, a gentleman of independent fortune, 

 residing at Arno's Grove, Southgate, where the subject cf this memoir 

 was born on the 31st of July, 1809. Mr. Walker — the father — had a 

 decided taste for science, especially Natural History ; he was a fellow of 

 the Royal and Horticultural Societies, and vice-president of the Linnean, 

 so that his son's almost boyish propensity for studies, in which he after- 

 wards became so eminent, seems to ha\e been inherited rather than 

 acquired. 



Mr. Walker's decided talent for observinc; noteworthv focts in Ento- 

 mology was first exhibited at home, when, as a mere child, his attention 

 was attracted by the butterflies, which, in the fruit season, came to feed on 

 the ripe plums and apricots in his father's gardens : J^ancssa C- Album is 

 especially mentioned ; and Liinciiitis Sibylla, another species no longer 

 found in the vicinity of l^ondon, was then common at Southgate. 



In 1816 Mr. Walker's parents were staying with their family at Geneva, 



then the centre of a literary coterie, in which they met, among other 



celebrities. Lord Byron, Madame de Stael, and the naturalists De Saussure 



and Vernet. They spent more than a year at Cxeneva and Vevey, and in 



1818 proceeded to Lucerne, from which place Francis, then a boy nine 



