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Vol. XLII. LONDON, APRIL, 19 lo. No. 4. 



GEORGE WILLIS KIRKALDY. 



1873-1910. 

 The fulfilment of sad duties is the lot of man. To me has come that 

 of making known the death, in the flower of his manhood, of George 

 Willis Kirkaldy, my good friend. 



After a separation of some months from his wife and little one, whom 

 he worshipped, he went to San Francisco, where they were, to spend the 

 Christmas holidays with them. While there he was induced to submit to 

 a fifth operation on an old fracture of the leg, and although it was suc- 

 cessful, he grew gradually weaker and weaker, and less than a week later, 

 on the 2nd of February, he breathed his last. That acute intellect, that 

 ceaseless, untiring worker was at rest. His course was run, and he fell 

 ere he grasped the bays that were to crown his achievement. 



George W^illis Kirkaldy was born at Clapham, near London, England, 

 in 1873, and was therefore in his 37th year. From his youth he evinced 

 a great love for natural history, but afier finishing his studies in the City 

 of London School, he went into the city, where he remained until 1903, 

 when he accepted a position in Honolulu, with the Hawaiian Department 

 of Forestry and Agriculture. Then began the happiest and most produc- 

 tive period of his life, and there also he met with the accident that 

 eventually was to deprive the world of the most promising of the younger 

 generation of scientific hemipterologists. Shortly after his arrival in 

 Honolulu, while out riding, he forgot the American rule of the road, and 

 turned his horse, after the English fashion, to the left as he came to a turn 

 in the road, and crashed into a carriage coming in the opposite direction. 

 His horse fell on him and crushed his leg. This was badly set, and after 

 the bones had knit, it had to be broken again and reset. 1'his operation 

 was repeated at intervals no less than four limes, the last with fatal 

 results. There, too, he met the lady who became his wife ; there his little 

 ones were born, and his little son, George, the first and best beloved, died 

 in infancy. 



Freed from the sordid details of clerical work, in his new position he 

 was in his element. He did not, indeed, care greatly to work on other 



