22 

 OUR DECEASED MEMBERS. 



FRANCIS WALKER. 



The sad intelligence of the death of that distinguished Entomologist, i^iaucis Walker, 

 of London, England, will, we know, bring giief to the hearts of all those who have been 

 favoured with the acquaintance or correspondence of that genial- hearted man. His con- 

 tinued and disinterested kindness towards all those with whom he had to do has endeared 

 him to many. Although we never had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with th« 

 deceased, yet to ourselves personally, as well as to our Society, he has always been among 

 the truest and kindest friend.s we have had, ever ready to do us any service in his power. 

 His death leaves a void in our circle which it will be hard to fill. The following brief 

 sketch of his career and his unceasing labours, written by one who knew him well, will h(» 

 read with interest : • 



It has become my painful duty to record that Francis Walker, the most voluminous 

 and most industrious writer on Entomology this country has ever produceil, expired at his 

 residence, Elm Hall, Wanstead, on the 5th of October, 1874, sincerely lamented by all 

 who enjoyed the pleasure and advantage of his fiiendship. He was the seventh son, and 

 the tenth and youngest child of Mr. John Walker, a gentleman of independent fortune, 

 residing at Arno's Grove, Southgate, where the subject of this memoir was born on the 

 31st of July, 1809. Mr. Walker — the father — had a decided tasto for science, especially 

 Natural History ; he was a fellow of the Royal and Horticultural Societies, and vice-pre- 

 sident of the Linnsean, so that his son's almost boyish propensity for studies,in which h« 

 afterwards became so eminent, seems to have been inlierited rather than acquired. 



Wr. Walker's decided talent for observing noteworthy facts in Entomology was first 

 exhibited at home, when as a mere child his attention was attracted by the butterflies, 

 which, in the fruit season, came to feed on the ripe plums and apricots in his father's 

 gardens ; Vanessa C- Album is especially mentioned ; and Liiaenilis Sihi/Ua, another species 

 no longer found in the vicinity of London, was then common at Southgate. 



In 1816 Mr. Walker's parents were staying unth their family at Geneva, then the 

 centre of a literary coterie, in which they met, among other celebrities. Lord Byron, Jla- 

 dame de Stael, and the naturalists De Saussure and Vernet. Tliey spent more than a year 

 at Geneva and Vevey, and in 1818 proceeded to Lucerne, from which place Francis, then 

 a boy nine years of age, made the ascent of Mont Pilatus, in company with his elder 

 brother Henry ; their object, in addition to the ever delightful one of mountain-climbing, 

 being the collecting of butterflies. The family afterwards visited Neuwied, and retni'ued 

 to Arno's Grove in 1820. 



In 1 830 the two brothers, Henry and Francis, again visited the Continent, and now 

 it was purely an Entomological tour, the late Mr. Curtis, the well-known author of 

 " British Entomology," being their companion. This party collected most assiduously in 

 the island of Jersey, and afterwards at Fontainebleau, Montpellier, Lyons, Nantes, Vau- 

 eluse, iV'c, the French Satyridai, of which they formed very fine collections, being their 

 principal object. 



Mr. Walker's career as an author commenced in 1832. He contributed to the first 

 number of the " Entomological Magazine," the introductory chapter of his " Monographia 

 Chalciditum," a work on the minute parasitic Hymenoptera — a tribe of insects which he 

 ever afterwards studied with the most assidueus attention, and one on which he immedi- 

 ately became the leading authority. He was then only twenty -three years of age ; but his 

 writings exhibited a depth of research and maturity of judgment which have rarely been 

 excelled, and which abundantly evince the time and talent he had already devoted to thes-e 

 insects. It is worthy of notice that he now descended from the largest and most showy 

 to the smallest and least conspicuous of insects, doubtless feeling that whereas among the 

 magnificent butterflies there was but little opportunity for the discovery of novelties, 

 among the Chalcidites everything was new — everything required that minute, patient and 

 laborious investigation in which he seemed .so especially to delight. Only two autiiors, 

 Dalman and Spinola, had preceded him in devoting their attention to the structure 



