1874.] 71 



contribution to our knowledge of the Britisli insect fauna, and liad an important 

 effect in stimulating his fellow-labourers to further researches, and it obtained 

 for its author a prominent place among the entomologists of this country. 



Crotch was always a most enthusiastic and skilful collector of insects, and in the 

 year 18G4, visited the Canary Islands in company with his brother, Mr. W. D. Crotch, 

 for the purpose of collecting the Coleoptera of the Islands. So successful were these 

 two collectors, that, notwithstanding the fact that T. V. WoUaston, J. Gray, as well 

 as W. D. Crotch himself, and others, had previously collected Coleoptera assiduously 

 in these islands, they added no less than seventy-seven species to the Canarian fauna. 



On his return to England, Crotch accepted an appointment in the University 

 library at Cambridge, and devoted his leisure time to the study of the species of 

 British Coleoptera, and commenced a laborious investigation of the ancient literature 

 of entomology, with a view to establishing a correct nomenclature for our species. 

 At an early period of these researches he had become dissatisfied with his published 

 Catalogue of British Coleoptera, and for this reason, produced in 1866 a second 

 edition, in which some of the undoubted errors and omissions of the first edition 

 were remedied, and which was intended to serve as a temporary stop-gap till he 

 should be able to complete a more elaborate and perfect edition. 



In 1865 he visited Spain, in company with several other members of the En- 

 tomological Society of France ; and in 1870 he repeated his visit to that productive 

 country in company with an English friend, and on both occasions brought back with 

 him collections of Coleoptera, remarkable, not only for their extent, but for the 

 number of rare and new species they contained. 



In the year 1867 Crotch published, in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 

 of London, a complete enumeration of the Coleoptera of the Azores, accompanied 

 by descriptions of new species found there by Messrs. Godman and Brewer. 



Although liis collections had by this time become very considerable aiul required 

 much of his time. Crotch pursued with untiring industry his studies of the literature 

 of entomology, and published, besides a large number of corrections of the Catalogue 

 of Coleoptera of Gemminger and Von Harold, a list of all the Coleoptera of the 

 group Adephaga, described from the year 1758 — 1821, referring tliem to their modern 

 genera ; this he did with the hope of assisting others who, like himself, were engaged 

 in attempting to cleanse the Augean stable of entomological nomenclature. This 

 work was published at Cambridge in 1871, and by this time he was recognized by the 

 best judges to be the man who had a more detailed acquaintance with the ancient 

 literature of entomology than any other living student. This paper had, indeed, been 

 preceded by one published in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of 

 London, entitled " the genera of Coleoptera studied chronologically (1735 — 1801)," 

 which was, and probably will long continue to be, of great use by pointing out to 

 Zoologists the great difficulties that encumber any attempt to deal in a systematic 

 manner with entomological nomenclature. In 1871 he also published a synopsis 

 containing abbreviated descriptions of all the new species of Coleoptera belonging to 

 the European and Mediterranean faunas that had been described during the year 

 1868 ; this little production cost a vast amount of investigation ; and it is much to 

 be regretted that it has not been continued by some other student, as Crotch had hoped 

 it would be. By this time. Crotch, whose enthusiasm for the study of entomology 

 seemed to take always wider and wider limits, had engaged himself in the investi- 



