mi.] 159 



through. This surprisiDg thoroughuess was assuredly a leading note in Ida 

 character. But to those who had to work with, or for, or under him, it led to 

 no hectoring dominance of behaviour. It was balanced by an equally 

 surprising kindliness of heart, by a sympathetic understanding and consideration 

 of other people's ideas, and by a true man's regard for their knowledge, indi- 

 vidual point of view, and sincerity of effort. 



Supposing that eye-accident at the outset of his career had never happened. 

 Well, I have sometimes asked myself — what then would my friend have done 

 and become? Possibly he would have devoted himself to science exclusively. 

 Nny, I fancy indeed this more or less was his ambition. And with his 

 intellectual alortness, his patience and accuracy in observation, his determined 

 thoroughness, supplemented, as these would have been, by means at hand 

 enabling him to prosecute liis investigations unrestrictedly — there is no doubt 

 he would have gone far, establishing himself as an enviable authority in this or 

 that chosen specialized department. Yet, after all, would he have thus served 

 his nation better than he actually did serve it ? May it not be that the very 

 restrictions and diversity of interests this apparently most lamentable misfor- 

 tune imposed on him, only rendered his life's service the more valuable by 

 couipelling it to be more varied and diffusive ? — Selwyn Image: May 22nd, 

 1921. 



The late G. B. Lone/staff. — There is little for me to add to the excellent and 

 appreciative notices of my friends, Professors Poulton and Selwyn Image. My 

 relations with George Longstaff began in the year 1878, when I joined him in 

 some work on the germicidal properties of certain advertised disinfectants, and 

 afterwards collaborated with him in many investigations in the Registrar- 

 Geuoral's Department of Somerset House, which afterwards bore fruit in his 

 published volume of "Studies in Statistics." It was not long before we 

 discovered each others interest in entomology, and from that time we became 

 constantly associated in the pursuit of that branch of natural history. I was 

 with Longstaff when he acquired the beautiful estate in North Devon where 

 much of his life was passed, and I well remember the keenness with which he 

 threw himself into the study of the Lepidopterous fauna of xhe district. His 

 published list of the Mortehoe Lepidoptera embodies the result of many years' 

 assiduous collecting and observation, conducted under the serious dilHculty of 

 impaired eyesight. He was an admirable field naturalist — patient, active, and 

 enterprising. He had a sovereign contempt for what he called " feather-bed 

 sugaring," and some of o'lr nocturnal expeditions among the North Devon cliffs 

 were not unattended with danger to those less sure-footed than himself. His 

 *' Butterfly-hunting in Many Lands " contains ample evidence of his interest in 

 the scientific bearing of the facts which he amassed with so much energv^ and 

 insight. Of his quality as a student of tropical fauna I had good reason to 

 judge in the course of the travels that we undertook together in South Africa, 

 a record of which forms part of the work last mentioned. It was characteristic 

 of him that so soon as any point of biological importance was brought to his 

 notice, he at once began to consider how far it might be illuminated from ento- 

 mological data, and to devise plans for acquiring and making available the 

 necessary evidence. In carrying out these plans he found scope for the 



