392 NATURAL SCIENCE. May. 



of the expedition was frustrated ; but Cameron resolved to push 

 on and accomplish the second. This he had to do single-handed, 

 for Murphy resolved to return with Livingstone's men, while 

 Moffat had died near the coast, and Dillon had shot himself in the 

 delirium of fever. Cameron reached Tanganyika, and there made his 

 principal contribution to African geography — the discovery that, at 

 the time of his visit, the Lukuga was an outlet from the Lake to the 

 west. He then reached the Lualaba and descended this to 

 Nyangwe, a point previously reached by Livingstone. Here the 

 natives forbade his advance, they refused him boats, and his men 

 protested : so Cameron gave it up, and struck away to the south- 

 west to the Lomani and across the head streams of the Kassabe to 

 Benguela, which he reached in November, 1875. During the latter 

 part of his march his astronomical observations enabled him to fix 

 the positions with greater precision, but the great question as to 

 whether the Lualaba belonged to the Nile or the Congo he left 

 exactly where he found it. Stanley arrived a little later and had 

 just the same opposition, and was in less advantageous circumstances ; 

 but he defied the natives, seized boats when he could not buy them, 

 coerced his men, and accomplished his mission. A comparison has 

 often been instituted between the methods of the two men, and 

 Cameron's peaceful tact has often been commended in contrast 

 with Stanley's forceful ways. But it must be remembered that they 

 were both sent out to do a certain piece of work, and that while 

 Cameron failed Stanley succeeded. In later years Cameron explored 

 the "hinterland" of the Gold Coast and the Niger in 1882, and 

 also the proposed railway route to India down the Euphrates Valley, 

 in which scheme he was a devout believer. For some years he had 

 settled down in England, his time being mainly occupied with his 

 work as promoter and director of several commercial companies. 



JOHN JENNER WEIR. 

 Born August 9, 1822. Died March 23, 1894. 



ANOTHER veteran entomologist has passed away. Mr. Weir 

 died on 23rd March at the age of 71. He was principally 

 known as a student of the Lepidoptera, numerous papers on which 

 have appeared by him during the last thirty years. He was one 

 of the earliest observers to remark the now well-known connection 

 between the colours of caterpillars and their edibility by birds, a 

 paper on this subject having been published by him in the Trans. Ent. 

 Soc. for 1869 and 1870. Students of the British fauna will recall his 

 work on the moths of Shetland, pubHshed in the Entomologist, on the 

 editorial staff of which magazine he served up to his death. Melanism 

 and other colour problems have received elucidation by his researches, 

 which included vertebrates — specially birds — as well as insects. In 

 the April number of the Entomologist is published also his last paper — 



