140 [J""'"' 



its worst. In the autumn of last year he travelled south to Cape Town, 

 breaking- his journey at various places to receive such treatment as could be 

 given him. On arrival in London, knowing that he had but very little time left, 

 he set to work to arrange his collection of African Lepidoptera — a task he was 

 not allowed to finish, being taken ill the Sunday after Christmas, and dying in 

 tlie early morning of January 3rd, 1919. 



His collections, consisting of many thousands of specimens of British and 

 African Coleoptera and African Lepidoptera, and his drawings of the African 

 larvae, have been presented to the National Collection. — J. G. I). 



Harold Stvale, M.D., was born in the year 1853 at La Verie, near Dinant, 

 Brittany. He was the second son of the late llev. H. J. Swale of Ingtield 

 Hall, Settle, whose keen love of nature he inherited. Entering the medical 

 profession, he settled down at Tavistock, and practised there for fourteen years. 

 It was here that the writer first knew him, and formed a friendship, which — 

 though maintained largely by correspondence — lasted till the day of his death. 

 He turned very early to entomology as his principal recreation, devoting 

 himself chiefly to the Hymenoptera. 



It was not, however, among British insects that his main collecting work 

 was to be done, and in 1900 he went to New Zealand, where he spent three 

 years between Auckland and Rotorua, making extensive collections both of 

 Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. In 1903 he returned to England, but, after two 

 years, decided to take up tropical medicine, and thereafter took up appoint- 

 ments successively in the Sudan, Central India, Portuguese East Africa, 

 Southern Khodesia, New Zealand again, and, finally, Samoa. In each of these 

 localities (except India) he spent two to three years, and many were the 

 letters he sent home, full of shrewd comment, not only on the insects, but on 

 all the manifestations of tropical life he saw around him. 



His station in the Sudan was at Nabardi, with an unpromising outlook on 

 sand and barren rocks ; yet, during the three years he passed here, he managed 

 by diligent search to get together quite good collections of insects, many of 

 them new to science. In this he was ably helped by Mrs. Swale, who, not 

 only here, but throughout his travels, generally accompanied him on his 

 entomological excursions. A few weeks before his death he was telling 

 the writer of the cuiious bursts of rain, which falls in Nabardi at rare intervals. 

 At such seasons grass and flowers appear for a few weeks, and then the 

 ground resumes for a long period its usual desert appearance. A curious fact 

 he noted was that the insect life began to appear not only before the grass and 

 flowers, but even before the rain had fallen — another case apparently of 

 " intelligent anticipation." 



In India he passed but a short time, but at Sena on the Lower Zambesi, 

 and later at the Lonely Mine, Rhodesia, he added largely to his collections. 

 It was at Buluwayo he made the acquaintance of Mi\ Arnold, Curator of the 

 Museum, who fired him with an enthusiasm for ants ; this no doubt accounts 

 for the ant-collections made not only in S. Africa, but later on in Samoa. 



In 1915 he came home with a view to taking up war work, and, as New 

 Zealand seemed to offer the best field, he returned there, only to accept shortly 

 afterwards a post in Samoa. The paucity of insect life here disappointed him, 



