lo [January, 



objects of natural history at the age of four years. He was especially attached to 

 the Coleoptera, but he was an ardent collector of everything belonging to the 

 British Fauna and Flora. In 1889 he made an expedition to Iceland, and collected 

 a good many insects, but apparently never published a list of his captures. The 

 Trichoptera were recorded by .Mr. McLachlan in this Magazine in November, 1889. 

 For many years he did comparatively little collecting, but devoted a considerable pro- 

 portion of his incon.e to acquiring well known British collections ; among them 

 were the Coleoptera of Mr. E. C. Rye and the Rev. A. Matthews (including the 

 latter's unique collection of Trichopterygldx), the Lepidopfera of Mr. T. Wilkin- 

 son, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. J. Sang, the Aculeate Hi/menoptera of Mr. F. Smith, 

 and the Hemiptera of Mr. Douglas and Mr. Scott. The cabinets in time increased 

 upon him so much that he erected a museum adjoining his house, which certainly 

 contains the finest collection of British Zoology that has ever been got together by 

 a private individual. In fact, it is doubtful if his British Lepidopfera are surpassed 

 by any other collection, whether public or private. He also possessed an almost 

 perfect British Herbarium. His Natural History library, too, was as complete as 

 he could make it. Mr. Mason was elected a Fellow of the Liimean Society in 1872, 

 and of the Entomological Society in 1874 : for some time he served on the Council 

 of the latter ; in 1884 he became a Member of the Societo Entomologique de 

 France, and for the last ten years he was a Member of the Entomological Club. At 

 his own expense he published the works on the Corylophidx and SpTixriidx, and 

 the supplementary Trichopteryr/ida;, of which the Rev. A. Matthews had left the 

 unfinished MSS.at the time of his death ; and for some years he employed Mr. John 

 Sang, of Darlington, to make coloured drawings of all the British c^taphylinids' ; 

 these were executed with great skill and care, but were never published. For 

 the particulars in this notice relating to Mr. Mason's medical career we are in- 

 debted to the appreciative notice in the Lancet of November 13th, 1903 ; the 

 writer of which says that : " The profession is the poorer by the death of Philip 

 Brookes Mason, a man of sterling qualities and excellent intellectual gifts ;" it 

 remains, however, for those who knew him intimately to ^)ear testimony to the 

 simple geniality of his character, and to the affection with which he was regarded 

 by his many friends ; his collections were always open to anyone who was interested 

 in any of the branches of study which they represented, and many are the pleasant 

 hours which the writer of this notice (who was first led to lake up the study of 

 Coleoptera by Mr. Garneys and Mr. Mason) has spent in the well known upper 

 room of his house, where the bulk of his collections were stored before they grew 

 so unwieldy that they had to be transferred to a special nniseum. Mr. Mason was 

 greatly respected in Burton-on-Trent, and will be much missed by the town and 

 neighbourhood. He was emphatically a man who made friends wherever he went, 

 and had no enemies, lie leaves behind a widow, who nursed him devotedly through 

 his long illness, and for whom all his friends feel deep sympathy in her great loss. — 

 W. W. F. 



Thomas Kelsall, who died at Blackpool on November 23rd, 1903, aged 78, was 

 one of the few remaining members of the older group of Manchester entomologists, 

 being contemporary and associated with Messrs. Presteott, Broadhurst, Hall, John 

 Bleakly, Joseph Chappell, and John Hardy. Some months previous to his death he 



