148 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



science up to the great age of, at least, eighty-six years. His 

 interest in the subject, however, by no means ended then, for I 

 myself continued to receive letters from him upon it up to 

 September 18th, 1879. This is the date of his last letter, and in 

 this letter he kindly permits me to dedicate to him a work then 

 in the press, ' The Spiders of Dorset,' of which the second (and 

 concluding) part was published only a few days after his decease. 



Anything like a minute account or criticism of Mr. Blackwall's 

 works is impossible here. Without a doubt his chief work is that 

 published by the Ray Society, 1861—64. This appeared under 

 circumstances of great disadvantage : not only had the MS. been 

 in the hands of that Society for ten years before it was published, 

 but just at a most critical point the serious and prolonged illness 

 of Mr. Tuffen West, the artist engaged upon the plates, threw 

 the whole into a confusion, from which it was my own happiness 

 and privilege to be able to lend a hand in its extrication. This 

 Work sums up all Mr. Blackwall's previous labours in the investi- 

 gation of British spiders ; and if it has not served to advance, as 

 much as from its own merit it ought to have done, the popularity 

 of Araneology in England, this may be set down mainly to 

 its unwieldly size — large folio, to its great cost, and the difficulty 

 of getting copies of it. 



With regard to the quality of Mr. Blackwall's works in 

 general, evidences are everywhere abundant of a clear and logical 

 mind, most conscientious and painstaking in the elucidation 

 of facts by actual experiment and in the description of 

 details. To the ordinary reader these details may be perhaps 

 at times somewhat wearisome, and bearing the appearance 

 of unnecessary repetition ; but to the scientific student they 

 present an almost photographically-true picture of the object 

 under notice. This character in the descriptions of our spiders 

 in the Ray Society's volume has been objected to as a defect, 

 and as hindering the popularity of the work ; but although 

 a certain amount of breaking-up into paragraphs would have 

 made these descriptions more easy of reference, yet such real 

 objection as there may be in this goes merely to the manner, not 

 to the matter, of the work. There can be no hesitation in saying 

 that taken in consideration with its actual date (which, as before 

 observed, must be set at least ten years previous to publication) 

 and with the disadvantages of isolation from other authors and 



