282 [December, 



obtained a Fellowship, and was for some time Tutor of his College. He was called 

 to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1861, and soon made for himself a high reputation as 

 a convejancer and a careful and safe Counsel in Court. He also did literary work 

 in connection with his profession, and edited (or re-wrote) a new edition of " Jarman 

 on Wills," a standard authority on the subject. In October, 1890, Mr. Dunning 

 had a paralytic or apoplectic seizure, permanent recovery from which seemed, and 

 proved, hopeless, and in July, 1891, he retired from practice. Not long after his 

 temporary recovery he visited the Pyrenees, taking with him his only son, who had 

 just been called to the Bar: to his fatlier's great grief the youiig man died after 

 a brief illness. The end came from another attack of the same nature as the first, 

 and a widow now mourns the loss of husband and child. 



When a schoolboy Dunning was in the habit of spending his summer vacations 

 at Bi'andon. He was there so fortunate as to re-discover Agrophila sidphuralis, and 

 "awoke and found himself famous" {cf. Staintoii's Manual, vol. i, p. 295). Soon 

 after this, in 1849, when only sixteen years old, he joined the Entomological ^'ociely 

 of London. When at Cambridge, in 1857, he was influential in establishing an 

 Entomological Society there ; a similar Society had been established at Oxford in 

 the previous year ; and the two combined and produced an "Accentuated List of 

 British Lepidoptera" in 1858, the object of which is indicated by the title, and in 

 the compilation of which Dunning did the lion's share. In after life he did but 

 little in the way of writing what he would have termed " scientific " papers, much 

 of what he did write being more of a philological nature, for he was a profound 

 classical scholar, and his ear resented any offence in this direction ; he was also a 

 linguist, and had a remarkable faculty for being able to translate almost any European 

 language (the Sclavonic perhaps excepted) almost at sight, although he had pre- 

 viously made no attempt in that particular direction. Possibly his chief scientific 

 ])aper was that " On the genus Acentropus" (Trans. Ent. Soc, 1872, with Supple- 

 ment in 1878). That most critical paper showed what he could have done had 

 time allowed, and inclination prompted. It also showed how greatly his legal 

 education and acquirements influenced him in other matters. An example of his 

 reasoning may be seen by an extract from that paper chosen as the " motto " on the 

 title-page of our present volume. 



In 1862 he was elected one of the Honorary Secretaries of the Entomological 

 Society of London, a post which he held until his retirement in January, 1871- He 

 entered upon ofiicc at a time when the Society was in anything but a flourishing 

 condition, crippled for want of funds, and disturbed by recent internal dissensions, 

 lie set lo work vigorously, and henceforward the welfare of the Society seemed the 

 one thing he had at heart. Its publications were fearlessly and impartially edited, 

 regardless of the not infrequent indignation of careless authors. Whenever, as was 

 very frequently the case, the financial condition at the end of a year seemed almost 

 hopeless, he forthwith supplied the necessary funds, and when there was no apparent 

 excuse for a direct donation, it was furnished indirectly in the way of adding some 

 expensive work to the library, and by means still more occult, for some of his 

 material help was rendered in a way that was known only to one or two of his 

 colleasiues. As his help was rendered impartially, the publications did not suffer 

 at the expense of the Library, or vice versa. It is not for the writer of this notice 

 who was his co-Secretary for a few years to specify his numerous acts of munificence. 



