22 [June, 



Oeorge Bedell. In the death-roll of the " Times " is tliis record : — " On the 

 2nd May, 1877, at 95, Coburg Eoad, Old Kent Road, Mr. George Bedell, aged 72." 

 Although scarcely known to the present generation of entomologists, George Bedell 

 was in former time one of the most assiduous and intelligent of British Lepi- 

 dopterists, not only as a collector of the perfect insects, but as a finder and 

 investigator of their preparatory states, more especially of the Tineina ; indeed, he 

 was one of the first in this country who gave continuous attention to the elucidation 

 of the life of these small creatures. He maintained his devotion to them as long as 

 circumstances permitted, and when no longer able " to follow to the field," he still 

 preserved liis interest in the natia-al history of tiny moths. He communicated notes 

 of captures, &c., to the " Entomologist," 1842, to the "Zoologist," 1843, 1844, and 

 1845 ; and in the latter work in 1848, page 1986, he described Microsetia {Nepticula) 

 quinquella, a new species discovered by himself. The genus BedelUa, Stainton, was 

 dedicated to him as a recognition of his merits as an investigator, and Elachista 

 Bedellella, Sircom, was also named in honour of him. 



Born in London, and working in it daily in mercantile employment up to last 

 June, he was a remarkable instance of the existence and continuance of an intense 

 love of Nature in all her forms, under circumstances never favourable to its inception 

 or exei'cise. His holidays were few, short, and far between, and his free time so 

 little that few men would have tried to utilize such remnants. Yet such was his 

 ardour that he never seemed tired ; though he never left his ofiice until sis o'clock, 

 he would then often go many miles to a collecting-ground to get, for instance, 

 NeptictdcE by lantern-light ! He might, indeed, have well been the original " London 

 merchant's douce and portly clerk" depicted in "Glaucus" by the late Canon 

 Kingsley : — " When he took you to his house and showed you the glazed and corked 

 drawers full of delicate insects, which had evidently cost him in the collecting the 

 spare hours of many busy years, and many a pound too out of his small salary, were 

 you not a little puzzled to make out what spell there could be in those ' useless ' 

 moths to draw out of his warm bed twenty miles down the Eastern Counties 

 Railway, and into the damp forest like a deer-stealer, a sober white-headed 

 Tim Linkinwater like him, your very best man of business ? " 



Of him as a man, it is not our business here to speak, further than to sum up 

 his character by saying that he never thought it any trouble to do his best to serve 

 another, and that he could in all circumstances be thoroughly relied on. Would 

 there were more such men ! Vale ! — J. W. D. 



Entomological Society or London : 3rd May, 1877.— J. W. Dunning, Esq., 

 M.A., F.L.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Messrs. J. W. Slater, H. J. Adams, and C. Adams were elected Ordinary 

 Members of the Society. 



Mr. J. Jenner Weir exliibited a bag-like structure, about the size of a man's 

 fist, formed of a thin but tough silky texture, without any orifice, which on being 

 cut open was found to contain many pieces of stick, some of which were two inches 

 long, leaves, and fragments of beetles, lying more or less loosely connected by silken 

 thivads, and in the midst a closely-spun small bag, containing among the floss a 



