188 THE entomologist's record. 



leaves a widow, two sons and a daughter, to mourn his loss. As a 

 citizen he took an interest in public affairs, and has held various im- 

 portant offices in what in Guernsey is equivalent to municipal govern- 

 ment. He was a valued member of the council of that excellent 

 institution the Guille-Alles Library, and a chief influence in the 

 founding of the Guernsey Society of Natural Science and Local 

 Research, of which, from its initiation to the day of his death, he was 

 Hon. Treasurer. He was elected President at the Fifteenth Annual 

 Meeting of the Society, a post which is tenable for two years, and 

 delivered his address on retiring on December 19th, 1900. He had 

 amassed vast collections of local insects in nearly every department of 

 entomology, and it is to be hoped that these may be retained intact 

 and held in competent keeping for the benefit and education of 

 Guernsey. He had also formed a valuable library of entomological 

 books and other works and engravings connected with his native 

 place, and had lately added to his house two capacious rooms for the 

 reception of these treasures. It is a touching circumstance that, on the 

 Saturday, feeling suddenly a great increase of his illness, and walking 

 with extreme difficulty, he made his way to the door of his "Museum," 

 and clinging to the door which he had opened, took a long silent look 

 around, before being led up to his bed from which he never rose again. 

 W. A. Luff has made his own name and place in the entomological 

 history of the Channel Isles- — and can never have a successor. He 

 has done a pioneer work which will doubtless receive additions from 

 other hands, and may occasionally require correction, but it will never 

 need to be done again. He has systematised our knowledge of the 

 entomological fauna of Guernsey in particular, and of the Channel Isles 

 in general. Every worker in the same field will be indebted to Luff. 

 All his life he had been collecting material, and his lists of the various 

 families of insects, indigenous to the Channel Isles, have extended 

 over a period of nearly thirty years. We need not point out the value 

 of such diligent and systematic work to the cause of science. His 

 knowledge, though chiefly confined to the insects of his own home, was 

 thorough, his industry unfailing, and his gifts of observation unusually 

 acute and accurate. We think it doubtful if any corresponding portion 

 of Great Britain has been so exhaustively searched, and the results as 

 minutely recorded by any one entomologist, as the Island of Guernsey 

 and its dependencies, by the subject of our notice. He, more fre- 

 quently before the foundation of the Guernsey Society of Natural Science, 

 1882, contributed notes to the various entomological periodicals, but 

 his chief and lasting work is to be found in the Transactions of the 

 local society. In these pages, from the first publication in 1882 to 

 within a few weeks of his death, appear, year by year, carefully 

 compiled lists of insects in all departments, recorded for Guernsey. 

 He began with the Macro-lepidoptera, using as a basis Ansted's not 

 very reliable earlier attempt to record the fauna of Guernsey. He 

 ended on December 15th, 1909. In cases admitting of doubt, he was 

 particular to submit his insects to the critical inspection of specialists 

 in England. This brief list of his principal contributions to the 

 Transactions of t/te Natural Science Societj/, will best show the wide 

 field of his investigations. 1882, " The Butterflies of Guernsey and 

 Sark," " A List of the Nocturnal Macros of Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, 

 and Herm ; " 1890 and 1892, " The Hemiptera-Heteroptera of 



