144 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



proceeded in no ha<phazard fashion to rush results, but step by step 

 deliberately arrived at the logical conclusion. Once on the trail he 

 followed it to the end. If genius is eternal patience, then his was 

 genius indeed. Some of the species dealt with in this volume are 

 ' common objects" of our northern islands as well as of the Midi; 

 others have relations with habits familiar to our field naturalists. 

 Fabre had something new to tell us about them all. He details the 

 discovery of the microgaster parasite on the ova of the Cabbage 

 White. He describes the blind infatuation of the Processionary Moth 

 larva when it takes its walks abroad, doomed to move in an eternal 

 circle, if the haphazard leader demands, until it drops dead from sheer 

 exhaustion. The methods of Nature's undertakers, the necrophorus 

 beetles, have a peculiar fascination of their own. Such " fairy tales 

 of Science " will always delight old and young, scientific and un- 

 scientific, by the magic of their appeal. Fabre went to Nature for 

 facts. He found them, and gave them to the world, clothed with 

 the immortal beauty of leaves plucked from the Tree of Knowledge. 



H. R.-B. 



OBITUARY. 

 Gaston Allabd. 



Gaston Allard, one of the doyens of the Entomological Society 

 of Prance (he was elected in 1863), died at the ripe age of eighty-one 

 at La Maulevrie, near Angers, in Januai'y last. His name is chiefly 

 famous as a dendrologist and as founder of the great arboretum. He 

 made a speciality of Coleoptera and Orthoptera. His uncle was a 

 General and President of a section of the State Council in Algeria. " It 

 is, perhaps, due to this circumstance," writes M. Oberthiir, " that he 

 decided to devote his attention to the lepidoptera and coleoptera of 

 Algeria at a time when hardly anyone in France, or anywhere else, 

 had done so." In 1864, 1868, 1870, and 1875 he was engaged in the 

 study of the Algerian fauna, on the last occasion with M. Rene 

 Oberthiir. The results of this latter expedition are described in the 

 first parts of the " Fitudes d'Entomologie " (Rennes, 1876). Other 

 journeys were made with M. C. Oberthiir to Zermatt, then a remote 

 locality (1864), Dalmatia, and Andalusia. His collections, which 

 include mammals and reptiles, are in the private museum, and this, 

 with the ar-boretum, he has bequeathed to the Pasteur Institute of 

 Paris. Prof. Balfour, who paid him a visit last year, describes in the 

 ' Kew Bulletin (Nos. 2, 3, 1918) how he found the veteran naturalist in 

 feeble health, but delighted to show his visitor round the aboretum, 

 where he saw PojJulus euphratica, one of the few in cultivation, a 

 new red-flowered jasmine, and Idesia polycarpa in full fruit, among 

 the many beautiful trees from North America, China, Japan, and 

 the Mediterranean littoral. One of his most interesting and 

 successful achievements was to plant the boulevards of Angers with 

 trees suited to the warm Angevin climate and equable winter, A 

 man of retiring disposition, student habits, and great culture, 

 M. Oberthiir says that he hated publicity, and for this reason, no 

 doubt, was better known as a scientist outside his native city, and 

 even in Britain than in France. H. R.-B, 



