48 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



AcHiLLE GuENEE. — Lfist j^ear's volume of the ' Entomologist' 

 contained obituary notices of Boisduval and Berce (Entom. xiii. 

 119). It is now our melancholy duty to chronicle the death of 

 another veteran French Lepidopterist. M. Guenee died, exactly 

 a twelvemonth after his colleague Boisduval, on December 80th 

 last, at Chateaudun, Eure-et-Loire. Possibly of all European 

 lepidopterists Guenee's name was best known in this country, 

 and especially to our readers. Since Henry Doubleday's ' List of 

 British Noctuse, according to Guenee's arrangement ' (Entom. i. 

 377 — 81, October, 1842), Guenee's name has occurred more or 

 less frequently in every volume of this periodical. He was of 

 great service to Doubleday in his determination of our British 

 species, thus assisting in the correction and simplification of our 

 nomenclature, and in identifying for him Htibner's and his own 

 types ; while on the other hand Guenee obtained a good know- 

 ledge of our peculiar British forms and varieties through 

 Doubleday. The list of Guenee's separate publications is 

 somewhat lengthy : the Boyal Society's Catalogue mentions 

 forty-seven down to 1873, and six have appeared since ; the last in 

 1879, when his health completely broke down. These are all on 

 Lepidoptera, and are by no means of equal merit; but some, 

 especially his earlier productions, are of great value. With but 

 one or two exceptions they all appeared in the French " Annales," 

 commencing in 1832. His most important work was the " Species 

 general des Lepidopteres," commenced by Boisduval, and pub- 

 lished in the ' Suites a Buffon.' . Volumes five to ten were written 

 by Guenee (Paris, 1852-7), who thus did much to improve our 

 knowledge of the European Noctuse and Geometrse. He also 

 worked at the Micro-Lepidoptera, with good results among the 

 larger species; his "Index" was published as earl}^ as 1845; and 

 his last article (1879) treats of this group. Guenee was an 

 advocate by profession, and was in his seventy-second year when 

 his death occurred. He was one of the honorary members of our 

 Entomological Society, elected in June, 1874 ; this is the first 

 vacancy since Zetterstedt's death in 1874. His death causes a 

 similar vacancy in the French Entomological Society, which he 

 joined in 1832, though not an original member, and was accorded 

 the higher distinction in 1874. Another gap is thus again made 

 in the ranks of French entomologists. — E. A. F. 



