-I So- 



OBITUARY 



On Wednesday, Aug. 13, 1890, one of Albany's best known 

 .collectors of Lepidoptera, Mr. Otto von Meske, died. Mr. Meske 

 was born Feb. 5, 1837, near Koenigsberg, Germany. Educated for 

 a military career, in which his ancestors as well as his brothers have 

 gained distinction, his artistic instincts were so strong that they in- 

 duced him to throw up this life as soon as he could manage to do 

 so and migrate to Paris, where, for two years, he studied with some 

 of the leading portrait artists. At the age of twenty-one or twenty- 

 two he came to New York, then to Albany, where he married and 

 settled. His entomological interest began soon after his marriage, 

 and increased to enthusiasm, when, with Dr. Bailey, Mr. Hill and 

 Dr. Lintner, he made Albany and Center Station famous for the 

 remarkable captures in Noctuidae. Of this quartette Dr. Lintner 

 alone remains. To Mr. Meske, Dr. Speyer owed most of the Amer- 

 ican material upon which his papers on our fauna are based. Some 

 ten years since, the nervous disease, which finally resulted in death, 

 made its first appearance, and necessitated a stop. of active collecting. 

 About five years ago his collection was sold to the U. S. National 

 Museum, where it still remains and forms not the least valuable part 

 of that grand collection of Lepidoptera. Soon after, the disease 

 made such progress as to gradually paralyze the lower extremities, 

 and despite the best medical advice and treatment, Mr. Meske be- 

 came utterly helpless so far as moving about was concerned, though 

 retaining the use of arms and brain unimpaired to the last. About 

 January, 1S90, the end began approaching, and constant and con- 

 tinuous suffering slowly sapped a wonderful vitality, resulting in 

 death at the date above given. Mr. Meske never published, but the 

 frequent references in the writings of Grote, Speyer, Lintner, Har- 

 vey and Morrison, show that he did not conceal the facts observed 

 by him. Mr. Meske leaves a wife and seven children surviving him. 

 None of the children inherit their father's love for Entomology, 

 though the interest of the family in Entomologists is kept up by 

 the eldest daughter, who became Mrs. Editor not so many years 

 ago. 



