Ixii PKOCEEDrNGS OF THE 



his entomological journal was most carefully kept from 1808 until 

 February 6, 1872, and is full of rare captures and valuable infor- 

 mation. When at school he made a beautiful copy of Harris's 

 butterflies, with additions of his own ; and though latterly com- 

 plaining that stiffness of the joints rendered the capture and setting 

 of insects not so easy as it used to be, Mr. Dale was, at 80 years of 

 age, as enthusiastic an entomologist as he was in his youth. 



Mr. Dale was a British entomologist par excellence, and one of the 

 very few who devote themselves to all orders. His collections 

 (which include a large number of foreign insects) are enormous, and 

 every specimen is so labelled that its exact history, whether it be of 

 yesterday or fifty years old, was traceable by its possessor in a 

 moment. The notes published by himself are chiefly -short, and 

 scattered through the periodicals of nearly half a century. But it is 

 in connexion with the late Mr, John Curtis that Mr. Dale's name wiU 

 be handed down to generations of entomologists yet unborn. In the 

 ' British Entomology ' his name is on almost every page, and it was 

 from his collections that Curtis derived a vast portion of the material 

 from which his elaborate work was prepared. The two worked 

 hand in hand, and their names came to be considered as almost 

 synonyms. N'ow that Curtis's own collection is unfortunately trans- 

 ported to the antipodes, Mr. Dale's is of special importance ; for it 

 enables the student, in very many cases, to verify species that might 

 otherwise be doubtful. 



But for Curtis, Mr. Dale's name would probably be scarcely 

 known beyond our own shores ; for he seldom entered the arena of 

 scientific controversy. He was emphatically an English country 

 gentleman, but (and the instances are rare) with a taste for ento- 

 mology ; and his loss will be greatly regretted, not only by his own 

 family and dependants, but by a numerous body of scientific friends. 

 His death took place suddenly and without suffering on the 14th of 

 February, 1872. Mr. Dale was one of the oldest Fellows of this 

 Society, having been elected on the 3rd of February, 1818. 



George Robert Gray (Assistant Keeper of the Zoological De- 

 partment in the British Museum, a naturalist of distinguished 

 eminence, both as an entomologist and ornithologist, especially in 

 the latter capacity, in which he took the highest rank) was bom at 

 Chelsea, in July 1808, and early in life assisted the late Mr. Children, 

 then Keeper of the Zoological Department, in the arrangement of 

 his private collection of insects, which was one of the most exten- 

 sive then existing. In 1831 he became an Assistant in the British 



