<^^ AND ^^^4 



JOURNAL OF VARIATION- 



No. 9. Vol. V. Septejiber 15th, 1894. 



©BITUARY. 



WILLIAM MACHIN. 



Born 1822. Died August 13tb, 1894. 



Another veteran entomologist lias passed from among us. A 

 kind-hearted genial friend, an upright and conscientious man, a keen 

 and enthusiastic le^jidopterist, an observant and diligent student of 

 nature was William Machin whose loss we deplore to-day. Born in 

 Bristol in 1822 and brought up as a compositor, he is to be numbered 

 among that large band of entomologists in whom an innate love of nature 

 has developed itself in spite of the drawbacks attendant upon want of 

 leisure and of a first-class education. From the first his entomology 

 was not carried out on a collection-making basis, although he has 

 always been an ardent and diligent field-worker, and his very earliest 

 records of captures made in the entomological magazines are accompanied 

 by notes of their habits and life-histories. One of that jjioneer 

 band who aided Mr. Stainton in the •' fifties " to collect the material 

 relating to the life-histories of the Tineina, he achieved remarkable 

 success in the rearing of the members of this heterogeneous 

 group, and the remarkably fine setting resulting from the 

 careful manipulation of his insects soon made his duplicate specimens 

 of the smaller species much desired by his bi'other entomologists, 

 especially those of the old Haggerstone society, of which I believe 

 he was an original member. Many were the communications he 

 made to the old Weekly InteUiycncer and to the early volumes of 

 The Entomologist. In 1856 we find his name mentioned in the 

 " List of British Entomologists " which Mr. Stainton compiled for 

 the Entomologist's Annual of that year, whilst a glance through the 

 lists of rare species captured and published in each year in those 

 interesting volumes reveals his name over and over again, far too 

 many times to be repeated here. Pkoxopteryx upujmna at West 

 Wickham, the breeding of Betinia sylvestrana from rinns picea, 

 with rare Etachistas and Coleophorae are mentioned among his 

 discoveries. From these we find that the genus Coleophora was 

 an especial favourite with him, and to his keenness and discrimination 

 we first owe Coleophora vibicigcrella and C. maritiinella as British 



