1S.22.] ]^-L^ 



Until comparatively recent years he continued his collecting of Insects of 

 the Wotton district, and not only those of one Order, but practically all groups 

 at one time or another interested him. From about the year 1875 the Aculeate 

 Hymenoptera were especial objects of search, and later the Homopterous bugs 

 seemed to have received a good deal of attention. 



Soon after beginning to collect Hymenoptera he added to the British list 

 tlie Fossor, Crabro gonac/cr, which for a considerable time was not found 

 elsewhere in this country, although it is now known to be rather widely 

 distributed. His observations on the nesting habits of the bee, Osnita bicolor, 

 which he observed concealing the snail-shell, in which its cells are placed, 

 with great numbers of ''bents" (or pieces of dry grass stems) have been quoted 

 by many writers. His pleasure lay, certainly, in field-work rather than in 

 minute study of the specimens captured, and probably he had neither the 

 inclination nor the power to discriminate difficult species, nor was he a prolific 

 writer to the magazines. Besides contributing to lists of Gloucestershire 

 insects of other groups, he himself wrote that on the Aculeate Hymenoptera — 

 in reality a list of the species found around Wotton rather than a county list. 

 Such errors as exist in this are mostly, if not all, due, I believe, to determina- 

 tions made not by himself, but by specialists to whom he sent insects for 

 determination. So recently as last August, when the writer, his nephew, 

 spent many hours in his company, his interest in his past collecting days was 

 almost as keen as ever, and his eagerness to know exactly where one had been 

 and what insects one had seen in his old haunts was surprising. 



Apart from Entomology all matters of Natural History interested him, 

 and at one time he possessed a number of specimens of our rarer birds, and got 

 together a large collection of birds' eggs. 



He was local Secretary of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeolooical 

 Society, was actively interested, as Trustee or otherwise, in various Cliarities 

 in connection with the town, and also in the local schools ; in past times he had 

 been Mayor and Alderman of "Wotton, and was the last survivor of those who 

 had served in either of these positions. He was elected a Fellow of the 

 Entomological Society of London in 1879 and resigned in 1917. His two 

 daughters survive him.— R. C. L. P. 



Frederick William Lamhart Sladen (F.'E.S. since 1902, and "Dominion 

 Apiarist" of Canada), who died suddenly on September 7th last year — not 

 exactly, as was first reported by drowning — but from heart-disease, while 

 bathing at Duck Island, Lake Ontario, had not long entered upon his 46th 

 year, having been born at Blackheath in May 1876. His father was Lieut.- 

 Col. J. Sladen, R.A., and his mother Lady Sarah Sladen (nee Lambart) was a 

 sister of the late Earl of Cavan. He was educated at home, and spent most of 

 his life till he left England in 1912— or at any rate till his marriage in 1902 — 

 at his father's house, Ripple Court, near Dover, among surroundings in many 

 ways ideal as a preparation for his future work in life as a Hymenopterist and 

 professional expert in Apiculture. At the age of 16 he had already had several 

 years of practical Bee-keeping, and had experimented with some success in 

 domesticating Humble-bees— a work which he continued for manv vears, 



