OBITUARY. 95 



OBITUARY. 



Arthur Ernest Gibbs, F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.E.S, 



1859-1917. 



Among the many entomologists whose loss we have had to deplore 

 during the past two or three years there is none who will helmore 

 surely missed than Arthur Ernest Gihhs. Small in stature but of 

 abundant energy, to whatever he put his hand, whether in business 

 or in the exercise of his many scientific hobbies, he displayed the 

 same zealous ardour, convinced that if a thing is worth doing, it is 

 worth doing well. His entomological enthusiasms soon carried him 

 beyond local interests, but he will always be remembered as one of 

 the first of his county to show keen concern for its fauna, flora, and 

 geology, and of his work in this direction the Herts County Museum 

 at St. Albans, to which he gave himself devotedly from the days of 

 its endowment and ei'ection, stands a permanent memorial. It is 

 chiefly as a lepidopterist, however, that his loss is deplored by 

 his many friends, colleagues, and correspondents beyond the ancient 

 city which throughout his life was to be his home. Here under the 

 shadow almost of St. Alban's Abbey, and for many years in the old 

 house on the site of the monastic fields — Kitchener's Meads — he 

 formed his collections, local and universal. For consignments of 

 specimens from the palsearctic, and tropical regions of Central and 

 South America were continually arriving, and I think it was a first visit 

 to the Vosges in 1908 wdiich began a series of butterfly hunts on the 

 Continent and in Algeria terminated only by the outbreak of the war, 

 when he was actually at Lyons, on the way to " fresh woods and 

 pastures new." His activities in the London Societies were multi- 

 farious. He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean in 1886 ; of the 

 Entomological in 1906, serving on the Council 1912-14, and at the 

 time of his death again elected to the Council, where he was a much 

 valued member of the Business Committee, his skilled knowledge as 

 printer and man of business serving the Society in good stead. 

 " Across the water " he was equally well known as a member of the 

 South London Natural History Society, of which he was a vice- 

 president ; and he was also a Fellow of the Zoological. Indeed, he 

 was an admirable example of the saying that it is the busiest men 

 who have most leisure for the amenities of life. To the ' Entomo- 

 logist ' he contributed interesting papers on his expeditions to the 

 Vosges, the Jura, and Algeria ; to the ' Entomologist's Record ' a 

 useful account of explorations in Bosnia and Montenegro. The 

 Transactions of the Herts. Natural History Society, of which he was 

 sometime secretary and actual president, bear eloquent testimony to 

 his love for the local fauna, the presidential address for the past year 

 being devoted to " The Satyrid Butterflies of Hertfordshire, with a 

 short Study of Pararge egeria," a copy of which, illustrated by a 

 finely-coloured plate, he sent me with a cheerful letter, from what 

 alas ! was to prove the death-bed of his useful and happy career. He 

 leaves a mother, a widow, and three daughters to whom we, his 

 brother entomologists, offer our sincerest sympathy. — H. R.-B, 



