TUTT AS I KNEW HIM. 109 



proportion ; not that he was desirous of doing away with theorising, far 

 from it, but in the landscape before him, theories must fill in the picture 

 as the clouds, adding much beauty but not occupying the place of the 

 solid ground of ascertained facts, for a wind may come and entirely 

 alter their shape, nay, may dissipate them altogether into thin air. As 

 I take up volume after volume of his books, the thought that comes is, 

 how did he get them written, his professional life was exacting, for he 

 never allowed his love for entomology to over-ride the foremost place 

 which he gave to the school of which he had charge, it is enough to see 

 the reports to realise that, to say nothing of the number of his boys 

 who have come on under his guidance, and who are now holding 

 positions of importance and responsibility. How, therefore, did he get 

 his work done ? His rapidity in dealing with things was quite unusual, 

 his rapidity of thought, rapidity in summing up the position and 

 summarising his conclusions were equally unusual, especially when the 

 correctness of his summaries is remembered. He was up at 5 a.m. as 

 a rule, he told me, and I suppose rarely if ever in bed before 12, and 

 often later, so that the Avonder is how he held out as long as he did. 

 We do not forget his many friends who helped him in his work, but 

 he himself arranged it all, transcribed the major portion of it, and 

 composed a very large amount. His consideration of the old literature, 

 so often neglected by present writers, is of inestimable service to 

 systematists ; his clear method of condensing it, and the use made of it, 

 cannot be too highly commended. Of course there are conclusions where 

 we disagree with him, but they are not of frequent occurrence, 

 and his fixing of the old types of the genera dealt with or referred 

 to, will be of real service to the future monographer ; the amount of 

 labour bestowed on this must have been enormous. We will refer to 

 special cases. His reasoning on the type of the genus iSnkin.r, and 

 fixing it as li;/Hstri, appears to us as entirely correct and reasonable, 

 and the same applies to Sesia. When we remember that both of these 

 were fixed for all practical purposes before the year 1800 had even 

 dawned, one cannot but regret that some more eminent lepidopterists 

 do not accept them, and still apparently decline to accept the Inter- 

 national Code of Rules. But on the contrary, turning to the volume 

 dealing with the Anthrocerids, we can see no valid reason for the 

 separation of the genera Adscita and Rha;/aiies : to us, the distinctions 

 enumerated, of which there are but two, are purely specific. Again 

 the author was well aware that his creation of several new genera in 

 the Riu-alidae, as also in the Plebeiidae, was inadvisable in the present 

 writer's opinion, for no real structural difference could be pointed out, 

 whilst the excessive naming of mere aberrations or sports was in my 

 view much to be regretted, and a reference to his list of Palfearctic 

 Urbicolides will show to how large an extent he carried out this practice, 

 though when I remonstrated with him about it, he replied that he did 

 not desire or imagine anyone would really catalogue them, and that 

 he did it to try and counteract the reprehensible practice of many 

 dealers in inserting in their lists their own named aberrations merely 

 for the purpose of sale. These points, however, really do not detract 

 from his work at all, and one only mentions them to show the mind 

 of the man and how he weighed things up before acting. One of the 

 most valuable portions of his work, however, we have not referred to, 

 viz., his histories of the habits of insects both generally and particu- 



