THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



VOL. XXII. OTTAWA, JANUARY, 1909 No. 10 



JAMES FLETCHER, LL.D. 



As mentioned in the December number of The Ottawa 

 Naturalist, it is with great regret that we have to record the 

 death of our very dear friend Dr. James Fletcher, which occurred 

 at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, on Sunday morning, 

 November 8th. 1908. There are many sad hearts among the 

 members of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club, owing to the 

 demise of him who has been styled its " Father". For the past 

 three years his health had been gradually changing, and becoming 

 undermined by intermittent hemorrhages resulting from a malig- 

 nant tumour which caused his death. Four years ago, when, 

 with the writer and some others, he was tobogganing near his 

 home at the Experimental Farm, he met with an accident which 

 confined him to his house for two months. Since then he often 

 said that his health was not what it was before, and it may be 

 that the trouble which brought his useful life to a close had its 

 origin then. During the last year particularly he suffered much, 

 at times, but his was not the nature to complain, and very few, 

 even of his more intimate friends, really knew that his life was 

 undergoing a serious change. The writer, who was constantly 

 associated with him in the official work of the Division of Ento- 

 mology and Botany knew what aches and pains he bore. Often, 

 especially of late, as we were working together he would say that 

 his head was thumping as if it would break, but it was only dur- 

 ing such attacks towards the end of the afternoon that he would 

 say he would have to stop and get away from the office. 



On Thursday afternoon, October 29th, he left Ottawa for 

 Montreal, to consult a specialist, saying that he would be back 

 again on Saturday, or Monday. On November 1st the writer 

 received a letter from him with regard to the annual meeting of 

 the Entomological Society of Ontario, in which he said: "I find 

 it is no use. I cannot get to the meeting. In fact, I only got here 

 just in time. I shall probably not be back for another fortnight 



at least " On the following day he wrote again saying: 



"I am very comfortable, everything so far is going well," and, 



