24 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Sephardic family of Spanish and Portuguese Jews. In all probability 
he largely derived his interest in entomology from his early friend, 
Dr. A. G. Butler, the well-known lepidopterist, which may also 
account for the lepidoptera being his favourite study. It was through 
the introduction of Butler that the present writer first made his 
acquaintance in the early seventies, and as we had both recently 
visited the Nicobar Islands—he during the transit of Venus Expedi- 
tion—we had much interest in common. In the days of his youth 
there were few promising careers in life for young entomologists, and 
it may have been owing to this cause that he did not pursue the 
study of Insecta with the zeal that he subsequently devoted to other 
branches of science—chemistry in particular. He would, however, 
have never joined the ranks of classificatory or faunistic entomo- 
logists, with whom he had little affinity, and I well remember him 
once telling me that in his opinion a great faunistic work, then in 
course of publication, was only an illustrated catalogue. He early 
inclined towards the evolutionary study of insects, and was especially 
attracted by the theory of Mimicry, to which he rendered yeoman 
service, and in the earlier days of both may have considerably in- 
fluenced his friend, now Prof. Poulton, the recognised protagonist 
and authority on that subject. In 1881 Meldola commenced his 
translation, with notes, of Wiesmann’s ‘Studies in the Theory of 
Descent,’ which was completed in 1882, and then appeared with a 
« Prefatory notice’ by Charles Darwin. This work was a very con- 
siderable strain on his leisure at that time, and I know him to have 
carried parts of his MS. with him on week-end visits. He acted as 
one of the Secretaries of our Entomological Society 1876-80, and 
was President of the same 1895-6. He held the Chair of Chemistry 
in the Technical College, Finsbury, for a considerable period, and was 
also President of the Chemical Society 1905-7; twice President of 
the ‘ Essex Field Club” 1880-83 and 1901-2; President of the 
Maccabean Society, 1911, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Member 
of the Atheneum Club. In the sixty-six years of his life, which 
terminated in November last, he may well be said to have run the 
course of a long and varied scientific career. 
In long past days, when he resided with his parents in John 
Street, Bedford Row, one remembers many happy evenings; we 
recall the memory of his venerable father, of many discussions on 
subjects other than entomological, and of a certain symposium pro- 
moted by the subject of this obituary notice in those rooms in which 
the late Charles Voysey and the present writer were the only Gentiles 
present. Of late years we did not meet so frequently, and on the last 
occasion when we sat together at the banquet of a City Livery 
Company, he told me that he still collected Tinseinex, especially on 
his summer vacations in Scotland and elsewhere. In discussing 
Bergson I remember him quietly remarking, with justifiable racial 
interest, that ‘‘ Bergson is one of us.” 
Raphael Meldola will be much missed in many circles; he was 
eminently a ‘man of affairs,” and with his keen intellect was especi- 
ally good at a council meeting. He has also left many personal 
friends. Wi ae 
q 
