ROBERT SHBLFORD. 205 



Robert Shelford. 



By MALCOLM BURK, D.Sc, F.L.S., F.E.S. 



Entomology has indeed suffered a severe loss in the distressing 

 death of Robert Shelford. 



He was born in Singapore on August 3rd, 1872, and thus was cut 

 off before completing his fortieth year. Educated at first privately, 

 and then at King's College, London, he went to Emmanuel College, 

 Cambridge, where he passed second in the Science schools. He thus 

 entered upon his career with a wide and thorough scientific education. 



His first appointment, as a teacher of Physiology at Leeds, was 

 abandoned comparatively early for the Curatorship of Kajah Brook's 

 Museum at Kuching in Sarawak. Here he spent seven years, which 

 must have been a continual source of delight to a man of his tastes, 

 education and powers of observation. 



Returning to England he took up his abode at Oxford, where he 

 undertook the re-arrangement of the rich collection of Orthoptera in 

 the Hope Department of the University Museum of Zoology. 



He found the Blattidac in great need of revision, and proceeded to 

 revise the group. Ho set himself to do this task with characteristic 

 energy and thoroughness. He entered into correspondence with 

 entomologists in every part of the globe, and in spite of ill-health, 

 visited a number of continental museums. He was thus able to 

 examine a large number of types and to work out the collections 

 brought home by numerous scientific travellers. His results were 

 published in a large number of papers containing revisions of several 

 groups and many specially faunistic papers. At the time of his death, 

 he was engaged upon the volume dealing with the Dicti/optera or 

 Blattidae, for the series of volumes published by the Indian Govern- 

 ment on the Fauna of British India ; his preliminary notes are 

 suflficiently ample to afford a valuable foundation for the next student 

 to undertake the task. He acquired a splendid knowledge of the 

 group, and it cannot be too greatly regretted that he was not 

 permitted to complete that monograph, which was the aim and object 

 of his scientific ambitions. He had the command of vigorous and 

 clear language, and the introductory remarks to his various papers 

 are a model of terse and crisp expression. 



His wide knowledge and the experience of seven years in the 

 tropics forbad him to be a narrow-minded specialist. His contribu- 

 tion to the knowledge of Mimicry in Bornean Insects, published in 

 the Transactions of the Ento)nolo<iical Suciety, are well known, but his 

 papers of Malayan Anthropology are perhaps less well known, 

 admirable though they are. 



His work at Oxford was often interrupted by failing health, and in 

 1909 he was obliged to abandon it. Under medical advice he went to 

 Margate, where it was hoped that the strong air and his constitution 

 would restore him to activity. He patiently waited till the end of 

 1910, when he returned to Oxford ; but it was of no avail ; he was 

 soon compelled to go back to Margate. He was a prisoner on a spinal 

 carriage, which made it almost impossible for him to handle 

 specimens, and he had the mortification of knowing that his 

 systematic work was to remain uncompleted. His ever active brain 

 September 15th, 1912. 



