HENRY WALTER BATES, F.R.S, 79 
suggestions of the prominent men of the Society; and he 
accepted it, I believe, only after his services had been rejected 
by the officials or rules of the British Museum. 
After his appointment to the Secretaryship, his entomological 
work was necessarily curtailed. But he occupied himself in his 
leisure with diligent and detailed work at the Coleoptera, and 
described a very large number of new species of Cicindelide, 
Carabide, Lamellicornia, and Longicornia. During the thirty- 
three years that elapsed between his return from the Amazons 
and his decease he became widely known as an entomologist, 
and his personal acquaintances amongst entomologists of repute 
were probably more numerous than those of any other indi- 
vidual. He was twice President of the Entomological Society of 
London. 
As may well be expected, Bates was thoroughly appreciated 
by the Geographers. Lord Aberdare, an ex-President of the 
Geographical Society, has expressed the following true judgment 
about him :—‘‘ He was one of the rarest characters I had ever 
known. Considering the vastness and variety of his knowledge, 
it was astonishing to find a man so gifted, with such entire self- 
effacement and modesty. You may well believe that the office of 
President . . . . is not merely difficult, but impossible without 
the assistance of the standing officials; and in Mr. Bates I found 
not only an ardent follower of knowledge, but one of the most 
sagacious of men. He knew men as well as he knew the butter- 
flies, to seek which he first made his acquaintance with the 
Amazons. He was a great reader of human nature, but he was 
more than that. We all of us in the course of our lives, I hope, 
have met many men who have commanded our respect, and also 
our regard: Mr. Bates was something more than that. It was 
impossible to associate with him without feeling not only regard, 
but personal affection.” 
Bates’ magnum opus, ‘The Naturalist on the River Amazons,’ 
is known to all of us; its key-note is a profound love of nature, 
its mode of expression, simple truthfulness; that it should 
be permanently popular is a credit to our nation. Some have 
expressed a regret that, since his paper on Mimicry, he has 
favoured us with no further wide generalisations or ingenious 
suggestions. The reason of this is not perhaps far to seek. In 
one of his Presidential addresses to the Entomological Society he 
commented on the absence of generalisations from the works of 
descriptive entomologists, and attributed it in part to their 
knowing how immense is the work to be accomplished, and 
what comparatively small progress they have made with it. 
“Thus,” he says, “‘our best working entomologists are led to 
abandon general views, both from lack of time to work them out, 
and the consciousness that general views on the relations of forms 
Tao, 
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