i?86.] li;^ 



d^bituarn. 



Maurice Girard. — -According to " Le Naturaliste," this well-known French En- 

 tomologist died suddenly, very recently, at Liou-sur-Mer (whither he had gone to 

 spend the vacation), aged 64. He held an ofBcial position on the Commission for 

 public instruction in Natural History. In 1867 he was President of the French 

 Entomological Society. France has produced many entomologists who have done 

 more and much better original work than did Girard, but she has lost in him a most 

 industrious writer on all subjects connected with applied entomology, and a careful 

 compiler of entomological educational works. In 1876 he presented to the French 

 Academy an important Memoir on the Diseases of the Yine in Charente, in which 

 the Phylloxera is treated upon in a considerably exhaustive manner. He was a 

 frequent communicator of notes at the meetings of the French Entomological and 

 other kindred Societies. A very useful little manual from his pen, intituled, " Les 

 Metamorphoses des Insectes," passed through numerous editions. Another similar 

 work by him treats on " Les Abcilles." His " Histoire Naturelle : Zoologie " is an 

 educational manual somewhat on the plan of Milne-Edwards' " Oours Elementaire," 

 but more extended. But what is probably his principal work is the " Traite elemen- 

 taire d'Entomologie," of which three thick volumes have appeared ; a laborious and 

 careful compilation brought down to date, and embodying an enormous mass of in- 

 formation, with numerous plates, which are, for the most part, adapted from Guerin's 

 " Iconographie." In manner Girard was courteous and affable ; always seeking in- 

 formation, he was always ready to impart it. 



Baron Edgar von Harold. — Eecent German publications record the death, on 

 the Ist of August, of this eminent Coleopterist, the fellow worker of Dr. Gemminger 

 in the compilation of the well-known Munich Catalogue of Coleoptera, entitled 

 " Catalogus Coleopterorum hucusque descriptorum synonymicus et systematicus." 

 Von Harold was an officer of the Royal Guard of Bavaria, and saw active service in 

 the war of 1866 ; a severe wound in the engagement at Kissingen during that cam- 

 paign appears, however, to have closed his military career. We gather from certain 

 allusions in his earlier articles on his special group, the Copridee,i]iaLt he commenced 

 the study of the Aphodiince long before 1857, in which year he began gathering 

 the material for the great Catalogue. His first essay, published in the " Berliner 

 entomologische Zeitschrift," 1859, indeed, gave evidence of considerable previous 

 study, and showed that the entomological ranks had been recruited by a writer of 

 great acumen and power of original observation. To this paper, entitled, " Contri- 

 butions to the knowledge of Coprophagous Lamellicorns," others of similar vigorous 

 analytical style on the same subject appeared in rapid succession until about four 

 years ago, when, to the regret of his numerous admirers and correspondents in 

 Europe and America, his activity suddenly ceased. 



The first volume of the Munich Catalogue was published in 1868 ; the 12th and 

 last in 1876. In 1867 he started a serial work of his own, specially devoted to 

 Coleoptera, under the title of " Coleopterologische Hefte ;" in this appeared many 

 of the important monographs of genera of Copridce, and elucidations of questions 

 relating to classification and nomenclature, for which he will long be gratefully re- 

 membered by students of this large and difficult group of Coleoptera. Tlie " Hefte " 



K 



