80 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



and Ceylon,' of which three volumes — including the whole of the 

 families Nymphalid^e, Lemoniidae, and Lyctenidffi — -appeared from 1881 

 to 1890. The first volume was by Capt. G. L. F. Marshall and Lionel 

 de Niceville, but the remainder were by de Niceville only. It is much 

 to be regretted that this valuable work remains a fragment. Sub- 

 sequently, Mr. de Niceville was appointed Government Entomologist, 

 Indian Museum ; and it was while engaged in official investigcitions in 

 the Terai, near Darjeeling, that he contracted the fever of which he 

 died, at Calcutta, on Dec. 3rd, 1901. His death came as a shock to 

 his numerous friends in India and Europe, and is a great loss to the 

 cause of Indian entomology. — W. F. K. 



Major Alfred Ficklin. — On February 4th, at the comparatively 

 early age of sixty-three. Major Ficklin succumbed to an attack of 

 apoplexy, after an illness of but a few days' duration. As an 

 entomologist he was essentially a practical one, and few perhaps knew 

 better than he the collecting-grounds of north Surrey, and what they 

 were able to produce in the way of Lepidoptera. Field-naturalists, 

 therefore, of tiie south of London will miss greatly from their ranks 

 his well-known figure. Major Ficklin was almost or quite one of the 

 very first members of the South London Entomological and Natural 

 History Society, of which he was President in 1880, and it is, perhaps, 

 amongst members of that Society that he was best known, and by 

 them his genial company and quaint entomological and fishing yarns 

 (for he was a fisherman, too) will not soon be forgotten. It was his 

 great delight to assist beginners in Entomology, and the members of 

 a school Natural History Society in Kingston-on-Thames, where he so 

 long resided, will, indeed, miss from their meetings and excursions one 

 who was so expert a breeder of insects, so diligent a collector, and who 

 possessed withal a manner so entertaining and so capable of winning 

 the hearts of boys. Tlie pursuit of Entomology, however, did not claim 

 the whole of Major Ficklin's spare time. He was an artist of no 

 mean order, and to his education at a school in one of the loveliest parts 

 of the Rhine valley may be due the development of his artistic taste, 

 and perhaps also we may here find the reason why he delighted to 

 paint scenes on the rugged Cornwall coasts. On these painting 

 excursions time was found for entomology, too, and it was under these 

 circumstances that he made acquaintance with the Cornish form of 

 Dianthecia Inteago, which some entomologists have thought sufficiently 

 distinct to need a varietal name, and have therefore termed Y&v.jicJdini. 

 But even entomology and art did not exhaust the energies of Major 

 Ficklin ; for from August, 1860, he had been connected with the 

 Kingston Volunteers, and from 1884 till his resignation in 1898 he was 

 their commanding oflficer, while for many years during his long service 

 he was one of the best shots of the battalion. Major Ficklin leaves 

 behind him to regret his loss a widow, a daughter, and two sons, the 

 elder of whom bids fair to keep up his father's reputation as an ento- 

 mologist and an artist. — W. J. L. 



