XVI THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Conchologist, being highly regarded by such authorities as Mr. John W. 

 Taylor, and Mr. William Nelson of Leeds, while for years he corresponded 

 with Mr. Damon, of Weymouth. He came to Canada in 1SS2, and 

 taking Orders in the Church of England, engaged in parish work in 

 Victoria, B.C., in Ottawa and finally in Wellington, near Nanaimo, B.C. 



He had not been long in Canada before he took a prominent place 

 as an Entomologist, and as early as 1883 he was mentioned l)y Messrs. 

 Brodie and White, in their Toronto Check- List of Insects, as a collector 

 to whom they were much indebted in the preparation of their list. 



The following year (1884) the late Dr. Fletcher on behalf of Mi". 

 Taylor, made a gift of a fine series of Diurnal Lepidoptera to the En- 

 tomological Society of Ontario at its annual meeting in London, Ont. 

 Of that Society Mr. Taylor became an active and esteemed member 

 and his first paper appeared in the Annals of the Society (1884) with the 

 title "Notes on the Entomology of Vancouver Island." To the Can- 

 adian Entomologist (Vols. 35 to 42) he contributed no less than twenty 

 papers, the last in March 1910 on some new species of Mesoleuca. 



He was a tireless rambler, and collected without cessation. His 

 " Notes for April in Vancouver Island " published in the " Ottawa A'at- 

 uralist," 1898, illustrate his activity, for he told of forty species of 

 Coleoptera, secured in an afternoon walk, besides Cicadas and speci- 

 mens of Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and Orthoptera, some of them rare, 

 There never was a more unwearied worker, and hardly did a day pass 

 on which he did not collect specimens illustrating some of his favourite 

 studies, nor was any exertion too great in the effort to obtain unusual 

 specimens. With the late Dr. Fletcher, Professor Macoun, Mr. Tolmie 

 and others, he climbed to the summit of Mount Finlayson, Vancouver 

 Island, in order to secure the rare Chionahas gigas, Butler. 



It seemed to him that the Micro-Lepidoptera offered a field for 

 original work, and he devoted himself to the Geometridse, specially 

 the two vast genera {Eupithecia and Mesoleuca). So zealous and suc- 

 cessful was he that his collection has been pronounced the finest extant, 

 and it has been recently purchased by a leading specialist in the United 

 States, to the loss of the Dominion. 



Eminent entomologists on this continent, and in Britain, France, 

 Germany and otner countries, were in constant correspondence with 

 him for he had won for himself a distinguished place as an authority. 



As early as 1887 he was appointed Honorary Entomologist for 

 British Columbia, by the Provincial Government. 



Life in the woods always had a great charm for him and for many 

 years he resided on a lonely but beautiful spot at the north end of 

 Gabriola Island, not far from Departure Bay, and was able to carry on 

 dredging in the prolific waters adjacent, and do much shore collecting. 



