OBITUARir. 4t 



and an excellent observer of the natural habits and life -histories 

 of various sjoecies. His ' Histoire naturelle des Coleopteres de 

 France ' is a fitting monument to his memory. This appeared 

 originally in twenty-seven distinct parts, or monographs, pub- 

 lished either in the Annals of the Linnean or the Agricultural 

 Societies of Lyons, and later republished in separate form at 

 Paris. This great work commenced with the " Longicornes " in 

 1839, and the last part appeared in 1878. Like many great 

 undertakings it remains unfinished, notwithstanding that forty 

 years' continuous and laborious work had been spent upon it. An 

 instalment made its appearance about every other year, consisting 

 of some hundreds of pages of letterpress and several plates, 

 illustrative of minute structural details, &c. Li the compilation 

 of the latter half of this history — since 1863 — Mulsant has had a 

 fellow-worker in M. Key. In 1879 the Prix Dollfus was awarded 

 for this work to the talented authors, MM. Mulsant and Rey, 

 by the Entomological Society of France. Mulsant and Eey 

 commenced a monograph of the Hemiptera (Phynchota) on a 

 similar plan, under the title of " Histoire naturelle des Punaises 

 de France." Five volumes are published (Lyon, 1865 — 79). 

 Etienne Mulsant contributed a very large number of articles on 

 the metamorphoses of Coleoptera and " Notes pour servir a 



I'histoire de " to the Agricultural and Linnean Societies of 



Lyons ; to the Memoirs of the Academy of Science, of which he 

 was a corresponding member; and occasionally to the "Annales" 

 of the French Entomological Society, being elected a member in 

 its first year, 1832. These were mostly collected in his ' Opuscules 

 Entomologiques,' pubished at Paris, in sixteen volumes (1852 — 

 1875). Many of his memoirs were written in conjunction with 

 other entomologists — Bourcier, Wachanru, Guillebeau, Gacogne, 

 Godart, Victor Mulsant, Mayet, Perroud, Peveliere, Lichtenstein, 

 Pellet, and especially Key. The Poyal Society's Catalogues give 

 261 separate publications. Mulsant was president of the Linnean 

 Society of Lyons, honorary member of the Belgian Entomological 

 Society, a member of the Vienna Society, &c. The list of 

 Mulsant's entomological articles, commencing in 1830, is very 

 long, and, despite the inevitable, we can but regret that it is now 

 closed ; still, much as we may regret that so much knowledge is 

 gone from us, we must rejoice that so much is preserved : litera 

 scripta manet. — E. A. F. 



