Pda a 
144 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
and at once made arrangements for a trip to the Amazons, being 
fired by the descriptions contained in the articles then appearing in 
the ‘ Zoologist’ from the pen of the celebrated naturalist, W. H. 
Bates. He visited Bates and collected with him for a time, after- 
wards journeying further up the river, and returning to England in 
the following year. 
His wanderings now ceased for a time, as he married and settled 
down, first at Tottenham, then at Epping, where he became intimate 
with Henry Doubleday and Dr. H. G. Knaggs, and afterwards at 
Hemel Hempstead. 
During 1886 or 1887 he lived at Gap, where he made a collection 
of Alpine insects, and soon afterwards spent a season in the back- 
woods of Nova Scotia. His last trip abroad was in 1896, when he 
voyaged to the Rio Negro. Some two or three months after reaching 
the interior, however, he was attacked by fever, and lack of attention 
and strain caused by being obliged to watch continually his two 
mutinous followers, who attempted to murder him, brought on an 
illness from which he did not recover for many months. 
In 1901 Mr. Piffard took up his residence in the New Forest, 
where he continued until a few years before his death, being well 
known to the many collectors who visit that (to use his own 
expression) ‘‘ Mecca of the Entomologist.’ Always willing to lend 
a helping hand to the novice or show a good locality to any “ brother 
of the net,” the almost boyish enthusiasm with which he arranged 
an excursion or greeted the capture of a rare specimen was most 
refreshing. 
During the following years he amassed a considerable collection 
of the local coleoptera, diptera, and hemiptera, but unfortunately 
did not preserve data, except of a somewhat fragmentary description. 
He founded at Brockenhurst the ‘‘New Forest Natural History 
Society,’ which still flourishes, and of which his daughter, Miss 
C. Piffard, is now Honorary Secretary. 
Bernard Piffard contributed little or nothing to scientific litera- 
ture, which seems strange, his knowledge being great and his pen 
ready, as is witnessed by the many scholarly articles written by him 
for the local papers. 
In politics an advanced Radical (he was at one time editor of a 
paper called the ‘West Herts Radical’), by religion a Baptist, 
though of very unorthodox views, a fluent preacher, writer of hymns, 
student of chemistry, archeology, Greek, and many other subjects, 
inventor of a method of electro-plating, also of a liquid smoke for 
curing hams, etc., author of a book of poems (some of which, 
though not the best, deal with entomology, viz. ‘‘ Sugaring,” “ The 
Fly Catcher,” ‘‘ Lament of a Dipteron,” etc.), also of a book, entitled 
‘The Abode of Departed Saints ’—his was indeed a versatile mind. 
As a raconteur he was at his best, dry and often rather caustic 
humour, coupled with an easy flow of language and wealth of 
gesture, rendering it a delight to listen to his stories of adventurous 
collecting in many lands. 
G. Ta 
