24 



on the 5tli of October. He died in the most perfect peace of body anil of mind. P'or 

 many year.s Mr. Walkei- was a member of the Linii?i;an and Entomological Societie.s of 

 London, but resigned las membership in both some time before the close of his life. 



In might bo excusable in a man of such incessant bodily activity — so locomotiTe by 

 inclination, so devoted to the study of Nature in all her a.spects, so diligent a collector of 

 the objects of his favourite study — had he allowed his pen to rest while his hands were 

 engaged in forming and arranging his collections. But this was not the case with Mr. 

 Walker, as his Catalogues of the National Collection abundantly testify. Of the Lepi- 

 doptera Heterocera, alone, Mr. AA'alker catalogued and described upwaids of twenty-three 

 thou.sand species ; in addition to which he prepared similar catalogues, although perhaps 

 not to the same extent, of the Diptera, Orthoptera, Homoptera, Neuroptera, and part of the 

 Hymenoptera ; such an amount of labour, as is testified by these catalogues, has .seldom, if 

 ever, been accomplished by one individual. But this statement by no means represents 

 the whole of his literarj' labours. He contributed shorter or longer papers to the Trans- 

 actions of learned societies, and to the periodicals of the day, especially to the " Zoologist " 

 and "Entomologist;" by the indexes of the latter I find he sent thirteen communications 

 to the first volume, three to the second, one to the fourth, thirteen to the fifth, and forty- 

 three to the sixth ; during the present year his writings appear in every number. I 

 intended to catalogue these and his other labours, to give some idea of the number of pages, 

 number of species and dates of each ; but I can scarcely now venture to look forward to 

 the accomplishment of this labour of love. 



A word remains to be spoken of the man, apart from the scientific and accomplished 

 naturalist. Throughout my long life I have never met with any one who possessed more 

 correct, more diversified, or more general information, or who imparted that information 

 to others with greater readiness and kindness ; I have never met with any one more unas- 

 suming, more utterly unselfish, more uniformly kind and considerate to all with whom he 

 came in contact. It is no ordinary happiness to have enjoyed the fiiendship of such a man 

 for nearly half a century.— Edward Newman, in The Entomologist. 



PHILIP L. SPRAGUE. 



Mr. Philip L. Sprague died at Montpelier, Vermont, his native place, on the Gth day 

 of August last, in the forty-fifth year of his age. He was elected a member of our Society 

 in 1860. 



About 18G2 he commenced the study of Entomology in the Vermont State Cabinet 

 of Natural History, displaying a marked taste for the Lepidoptera, and during the inter- 

 vals of his business made considerable progress in biological investigations, as well as in 

 the technology of the science. Circumstances soon induced him lo direct his attention 

 chiefly to the Coleoptera, and here his assiduity in making collections, his accuracy in the 

 determination of species, and his studies in the microscopic anatomy of this order, gave 

 his opinions weight among naturalists. His keen appreciation of the labours of his pre- 

 decessors, and his love of neatness and method, evinced themselves in all he did. 



At the time of his death he had been for some months a valuable assistant and 

 member of the Boston Society of Natural History, where many of his works remain to 

 speak for themselves. Among his associates there he was distinguished for his geniality 

 of manner and never-failing readiness to assist younger students. At the time of his 

 death his fame and foreign correspondence were somewhat extended, and he was actively 

 engaged in the preparation of materials for an illustrative cabinet of the Natural History 

 of his native State. He had published from time to time in the Canadian Entmiologist 

 and the Proceedings of the Natural History Society carefully elaborated results of his 

 work, and contributed to various other })eriodicals devoted to his favourite branch of in- 

 vestigation. His fine private cal)iiu3t of insects, principally of the Coleopterous Order, in 

 accordance with his expressed determination, form a part of the Museum of the Society 

 to which he was attached, and is in itself no mean monument to his memory. 



