34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



principal publication was the ' Flora Homoeopathica,' in two volumes 

 of 68 coloured plates and text, issued in 1852-53. He was 

 attached to field-sports all his life, and was twenty years a Vice- 

 President of the Zoological Society ; he also took a warm interest 

 in artistic matters, his Catalogue of the engraved works of Sir 

 Joshua Eeynolds being of standard value. Other publications of 

 his were 'The Riverside Naturalist,' 1890; 'The Wild Cat of 

 Europe,' 1896 ; ' The Wild Cat of Scotland,' 1897 ; and he edited 

 his brother's ' Records of Sport in Southern India . . . between 

 1844 and 1870,' in 1892. 



Philip Brooke Mason, M.E.C.S., P.L.S., P.E.S., who died at 

 Burton-on-Trent on November 6th, 1903, aged 61, was a well- 

 known physician in the Midlands, and might have obtained a high 

 position in London but for the fact that, on the death of his 

 father, while he was quite young, he was obliged for family 

 reasons to succeed to his practice in Burton. He gained seven 

 gold and silver medals at University College, London, as well as 

 three exhibitions for pathological anatomy, medicine, and surgery. 

 In the Hospital he was house-surgeon to Mr. Erichsen and Sir 

 Henry Thompson ; and in 1866 he was appointed Demonstrator of 

 Anatomy in University College, and held that appointment for 

 three years. Prom his earliest years he was a collector of objects 

 of natural history ; in fact, he used to say himself that he began 

 to collect when four years old. His chief bent, on the whole, was 

 towards the British Coleoptera, but he formed collections of nearly 

 everything belonging to the British Pauua, besides amassing a 

 very fine collection of British plants. In 1889 he made an ex- 

 pedition to Iceland, but no records of his numerous captures appear 

 to have been made, except of the Trichoptera, which were worked 

 out by Mr. MacLachlan. As he grew older, Mr. Mason did very 

 little actual collecting, but he spent large sums in acquiring well- 

 known British collections ; among these were Mr. E. C. Rye's 

 Coleoptera, and the Rev. A. Matthew's Trichopterygidae, and also 

 the Aculeate Hymenoptera of Mr. P. Smith, and the Hemiptera 

 of Mr. Douglas and Mr. Scott ; the chief amounts, however, which 

 he expended were on the British Lepidoptera; beside large 

 numbers of specimens which he bought at various sales, he 

 acquired the famous old collection of Edwin Shepherd of Pleet 

 Street, and also the collections of Mr. T. Wilkinson and Mr. 

 Douglas. His collection of British Lepidoptera is probably the 

 finest in existence, and we are very sorry to hear that it is likely 

 to be dispersed. 



Mr. Mason was elected a Pellow oE the Linnean Society on 

 6th June, 1872; and he served for some time on the Council 

 of the Entomological Society. 



He was by no means a mere collector, for he was a man of 

 wide knowledge and reading, but he published very little ; at his 

 own expense he brought out the works on the Corylophidae and 



