RECENT LITERATURE, 71 



general entomologists, and other observers of natural phenomena, 

 will probably find the book quite as interesting as the economic 

 entomologist pure and simple. There are a number of plates, con- 

 taining fifty-three lightly-drawn figures of many of the insects 

 referred to : usually these are particularly faithful to nature and 

 most useful. Occasionally the diction is not quite lucid ; but, con- 

 sidering the amount of detail, there are very few slips — Sij-ex noctilio, 

 however (p.. 43), must be intended rather than the very scarce 

 S. juvencns. Since Mr. Ealand is giving instruction in entomology 

 we are surprised at his using the out-of-date grouping of the natural 

 orders given on pp. 24-26. So incongruous is the assemblage of 

 individuals in the Aptera and Neuroptera that no wonder the diagnosis 

 in these orders are faulty. — W. J. L. 



OBITUARY. 



Charles Owen Waterhouse. 



This highly respected entomologist passed away on February 4th, 

 aged 73 years, after a long and fluctuating illness. Born on June 19th, 

 1843, he was the eldest son of the late G. R. Waterhouse, who from 

 1851 to 1880 was keeper of the Geological Department of the British 

 Museum, and better known among zoologists as the author of the 

 first two volumes of ' A Natural History of the Mammalia ' (1846-48), 

 and to entomologists in particular by his ' Catalogue of British 

 Coleoptera' (1858). He was also godson to Darwin and Owen, who 

 were friends of his father, but was not born in the official residence 

 at Bloomsbury as was sometimes conjectured, which his age mani- 

 festly contradicts, though as a boy of nine years he lived in the 

 Museum buildings. He was educated at University College School 

 and at King's College, and at the age of twenty-three joined the 

 entomological staff of the Museum in 1866, where he subsequently 

 held the appointment of Assistant Keeper from 1905 till his retire- 

 ment in 1910, when, he was created a Companion of the Imperial 

 Service Order. 



The present writer first made his acquaintance in 1869 in the 

 entomological room of the Bloomsbury building, an apartment much 

 smaller and less specialised than the series of rooms now devoted to 

 the Insecta at South Kensington. Many of us still remember the 

 former entomological sanctuary, which was then occupied by A. G. 

 Butler who worked at the Lepidoptera and had charge of several 

 other orders of insects, our late friend was custodian to the Coleoptera; 

 Fredk. Smith studied and arranged the Hymenoptera, while the 

 spare Dickensian figure of Fras. Walker was to be seen engaged in 

 his encyclopaedic attempts to catalogue and describe beyond the 

 capacity of any single entomologist. In this room also Dr. Baird sat 

 and worked at other branches of zoology, in which he was eventually 

 succeeded by Fras. Jeffrey Bell. Of the entomologists who then 

 formed that staff', A. G. Butler is now the only survivor. The vicinity 

 of the Museum then contained the offices or show-rooms of many 



