1910.1 51 



friend of Edward Saunders, and no doubt was more than pleased 

 to bestow " duplicates " and items of information on so appreciative a 

 recipient. At any rate, specimens ticketed with the initials S. S. S. 

 form no inconsiderable part of the Palsearctic Collection of the latter, 

 and may probably have been its original nucleus. Subsequently it 

 was augmented from time to time by specimens, or even whole collec- 

 tions, handed over to him by some of his many " travelled " friends 

 (e.g., the Eev. A. E. Eaton, Commander Walker, Dr. Chapman, and 

 others) ; and the excellent descriptions which he pubhshed of new 

 species detected by him among these windfalls gradually brought him 

 into communication and exchange of specimens with many of the most 

 eminent Continental Hymenopterists, so that he amassed at last a 

 collection, rich in genera and species, and not destitute of actual 

 " types," though boasting no long series of duplicates. " Exotics " he 

 deliberately left to others, and neither described them nor admitted 

 them to his collection. 



It is quite impossible within the limits of this Notice to give even 

 the titles of Saunders's minor writings on Aculeates. It must sufl&ce 

 to say that his grand work " The Hymenoptera-Aculeata of the British 

 Isles " (1896) is one of the few without which no serious Hymenop- 

 terist thinks his working-library complete, and that its merits have 

 been acknowledged in the warmest terms by every one at home or 

 abroad who is competent to form an opinion upon it. 



Except in his earliest years Saunders could only work at entom- 

 ology in the intervals of busmess, and this practically compelled him 

 to deal with his subject almost entirely on its " systematic " side. It 

 was impossible for him to conduct experiments or observations re- 

 quiring unbroken attention for long spaces of time. Indeed, it is quite 

 astonishing that a man whose daylight hours were spent almost 

 invariably in the Eoyal Exchange should have been a collector and 

 field-naturalist at all, much more one so skilful and successful as he 

 proved himself, when a rare "off-day" or brief summer- vacation o-ave 

 him his opportunity. (He never collected nor- even described on 

 Sundays, though he was absolutely free from pharisaical bigotry on 

 this or any other matter, and often said that " what was rio-ht for a 

 man was whatever he felt to be right in his own case"). Practically, 

 therefore, all his serious work was done either in the earlv morning, 

 or in the evening after returning from town — at which time he was 

 always siu-rounded by his yomig family, and ready at a moment's 

 notice to turn from his books and boxes, to join in a game or con- 

 versation, or welcome a visitor, or discuss a domestic problem. He 



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