276 [December, 



differences in the last joint of the maxiUary palpi in these two forms,* and 

 carefully described them, forgetting that it is on these differences that the genus 

 Leptacinus is separated from Xantholmus ! The species I described as X. siib- 

 strigosus is therefore nothing more than Leptacinus batychrus, Gyll. X. scoticus 

 I still regard as a good species. The very fine scvdptiiriug on the thorax in the 

 two genera Philonthus and Quedius is of great importance, and I believe always 

 speciiic. For instance, in Q. mesomelinus the fine strigose lines pass straight 

 across the middle of the thorax, whereas in Q. nigrocseruleus they are abruptly 

 bent at the middle line. The very closely allied species of the subgenus Raphinis 

 can be easily differentiated by a comparison of the fine sculptiiring of the head 

 and thorax. Of course it is possilile that a character like this may be only 

 varietal in another, even though fairly closely allied genus. — Norman H. Joy. 



Vespa vulgaris in November. — Social wasps have been extremely abundant 

 this year in Suffolk, and the mild weather of the autiunn has caused them to 

 continue working well into November. All throvigh October they were to be 

 observed on the ivy blossom, and, on November 1st, workers of V. vulgaris were 

 constantly flying back and forth from their nest in an old willow stump in the 

 garden here in niunbers nearly, if not quite, as strong as in August. Smitli 

 mentions their hibernation in September. In the wasp plague year (1911) the 

 last was noted here on October 28th. — Claude Moblet, Monks Soham House, 

 Suffolk : November, 1913. 



Alfred Bussel Wallace, O.M., B.C.L., F.B.S., the last survivor of the 

 illustrious band of pre-eminent English Naturalists of the nineteenth centux-y, 

 passed away peacefully, after a brief illness, on the morning of November 6th, 

 at the patriarchal age of nearly 91 years, he having been born at Usk, 

 Monmouthshire, on January 8th, 1828. In this place we can refer only to his 

 life-long connection \vith Entomological science. In 1845, when residing at 

 Leicester, we find him actively engaged in collecting beetles in company with 

 his afterwards famous colleague H. W. Bates, and in 1848 the two entom- 

 ologists set ovit on their meinoraVile exjiedition to the River Amazon. Wallace's 

 adventures and observations in this wonderful region, and the sad disaster 

 which befell him on the voyage home in 18o2, involving the total loss by fire of 

 his chief collections, are related in vivid and graphic manner in his earliest 

 book " Travels on the Amazon and Eio Negro." Two years later commenced 

 his sojourn of eight years (1854-1862) in the islands of the remote East, some 

 of whicli he was pi-obably the first Englishman to visit, as he was certainly the 

 first European to live alone on tlie mainland of New Guinea. The outcome of 

 his wanderings in this region was the addition to our knowledge of thousands 

 of new and often splendid forms of insect life (his collections including no 

 fewer than 109,700 specimens of insects alone), and tlie publication in 1869 of 

 the " Malay Archipelago," with one possible exception the most fascinating 



* Tlic late iMr. V. do la Garde iiointed out to mo the very marked ditTeronces in rhe ]>aliu of 

 Ox'ipoda licidipi iiaU and 0. fittaia, differences which 1 believe had been quite overlooked. 



