52 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Chiltenden, very black forms of Acidalia inornata, taken near Ashford, 

 Kent. Mr. Jenner Weir exhibited, with other species, a female specimen 

 of Anosia j)lexippus,\y\\\(ih. he had received from Mr. Cockerell, Custer Co., 

 Colorado, and stated that although in this specimen the inner edge of the 

 wing was quite as black as those received by him from Canada and 

 Hudson's Bay, it yet differed in the colour of the spots on the fore wing 

 being all white, whereas in the northern specimens the four large central 

 spots were of a fulvous brown, little inferior in richness to that of the disc 

 of the wing. At the same time he showed a water-colour drawing, of the 

 specimen taken at Lindfield, 1876, from which it appeared that the 

 example then captured resembled the more northern form of the species. 

 Male and female specimens of Pieris oleracea were also exhibited by Mr. 

 Weir, who said he had always contended this species was not identical with 

 P. napi; and he had received a comrauiiicatiou from Mr. Scudder, who 

 wrote that he had now been ai)le to malie the comparison wished, and could 

 report that the two species were distinguishable from each other in the 

 caterpillar and chrysalis stages, as surely and readily as P. napi and P. rupee 

 could be distinguished in the same stages. Mr. T. R. Billups exhibited 

 types of eighty species of Hymenoptera, parasitic on Lepidoptera, witli 

 cocoons from which some had emerged, and larvae from which severnl 

 parasites had been reared. 



OBITUARY. 



Thomas Eedle was born at Pinner, Middlesex, June 13th, 18-29, and 

 died on the last day of 1888. From his earliest youth he showed an innate 

 fondness for Nature, and especially for her subjects in their homes. A few 

 years ago, one of our popular writers belauded the works of a Scotch 

 naturalist, who at best was but a dilettante. Mr. Smiles need not have 

 gone so far north for a subject, for none would have suited him better than 

 Thomas Eedle. Such he was, — painstaking, observant, and most generous 

 in helping young students ; for though he made his study his business, 

 he never withheld a locality, nor a bit of useful knowledge, " for trade 

 purposes"; although first a lepidopterist, betook an all-round interest in 

 Natural History, nothing coming amiss to him. In 1869 and 1870 Mr. 

 Eedle made two very successful excursions to Rannoch, in Scotland, where 

 he took a specimen of the then very rare Pachnobia hyperborea, the second 

 specimen which had been found in Britain. In 187 J, Lord Walsinghara 

 took the subject of this notice with him on his visit to the Western 

 States of America, when Eedle acted as collector and assistant during his 

 Lordship's explorations until 1872. On his return, Eedle collected for 

 Lord Walsingham in Horning Fen and elsewhere. While in the fen he 

 captured a long series of Vanessa antiopa, probably the largest take of that 

 species in this country in modern times. In 1874 he made a third 

 summer's stay in Scotland, after which he settled steadily to his business 

 of taxidermist and dealer in Natural History subjects. Among his larger 

 work is some in the museums of the Marquess of Ripon, Lord Walsingham, 

 and others. Much that is known of several of the rarer Lepidoptera of 

 the Home Counties is due to Eedle, especi illy of such species as Erastria 

 venmtula, Chrosis bifasciana, Hypercallia citrinalis, Aleusis pictaria, &c. 

 He was a founder of the Haggerston Entomological Society, and was gene- 

 rally respected for his unassuming manner and great experience. — J. T. C. 



