HENRY DOUBLEDAY. 55 



in later years almost wholly abandoned; and when in 1873 

 he spent a couple of days with Mr. Hewitson, at Oatlands, it 

 was the first time he had slept in a friend's house for more 

 than seven and twenty years. Upon the death of his father, 

 in 1848, the entire management of the business at Epping 

 devolved upon Henry Doubleday ; in addition to which he 

 was the local agent for the Sun Fire Office, and the Treasurer 

 V)oth of the local turnpike trust and of the Poor Law Union. 

 Henceforth his various duties kept him a close prisoner at 

 home. His collecting excursions gradually ceased, or were 

 performed vicariously by Mr. James English, who, from 

 1838, had been his constant companion on such occasions, 

 and who continued to collect for him to the last. 



It is well-nigh thirty years since Henry Doubleday, by the 

 intervention of the Editor of the ' Zoologist,' was first 

 brought into communication with the present writer, then a 

 lad at school in Yorkshire, who had taken a fancy to 

 Lepkloptera^ and collected perhaps a couple of hundred 

 of our commoner species. The delight of the schoolboy may 

 be imagined on receiving shortly afterwards a box from 

 Epping containing several score species, chiefly southern, 

 some of considerable rarity, whilst the specimens were 

 mostly bred, and all set to perfectio-n. In this respect my 

 experience was only that of every youngster who came in 

 contact with him. I believe nothing in the world gave him 

 such pleasure as to make up a box of insects which he 

 lliought would be useful to any of his correspondents. His 

 liberality was unbounded ; nor was it limited to the gift of 

 that for which he himself had no use ; but, occupied as he 

 was, he would devote hours of his time to naming obscure- 

 looking insects for anyone who chose to trouble him, and would 

 take endless trouble to enable him to answer conscientiously 

 the multitudinous enquiries that were addressed to him. 



I am not aware that Doubleday ever interested himself in 

 any other order of insects than Lepidoptera ; though a short 

 note by him on Synipelrvm, a genus of dragonflies, will be 

 found in the 'Entomologist' (1841); and in Lepidoptera he 

 had no great knowledge of exotic species, whilst his 

 acquaintance with the Euroj^ean forms was made for the 

 purpose of studying and understandihg the British species. 

 In short, it was as a British Lepidopterist that he was 



