( xliv ) 



to encourage the study of Entomology in France. I do not 

 know his age, but as lie published an apparently good paper 

 seventy-four years ago he surely mvist have exceeded 90 

 years. 



Ottmar Hoffman of Regensburg died on February 22nd in 

 his 65th year. Lord Walsinghain has written an obituary 

 notice in the " Entomologists' Monthly Magazine " for Sep- 

 tember last, which gives an account of his work and commends 

 him for his exhaustive researches in clearing up critical differ- 

 ences of structure and obscure life-histories of European 

 Micro-Lepidoptera. It is very fortunate that his collections 

 have been acquired by Lord Walsingham so that they may 

 ultimately go to the British Musevim, which bids fair to 

 possess the best representative collection of Micro-Lepidoptera 

 in the world. 



Professor Joseph Mik died on the same day as Staudinger, 

 October L3th, after a very short illness. He was personally 

 known to me, as I met him at Vienna in 1888, and again at 

 Hainfeld in Lower Austria, where he usually spent his 

 holidays, in August 1896. I very much regret his death, as I 

 considered him to be perhaps the most capable all-round 

 working European Dipterologist of recent times, and as he 

 had just retired from his laborious and embarrassing school 

 duties, and was only 61 years old, I had hoped that he might 

 have been spai-ed to give us much more from his fertile 

 pen. Though he published a vast quantity of notes and 

 criticisms on European Dipterology he never published any 

 standard work, and some critics have said that whereas his 

 position as Editor of the "Wiener Entomologische Zeitung' 

 enabled him to issue a very large number of notes under 

 his " Dipterologische Miscellen," they should have been con- 

 densed into more concentrated work. I feel great diffi- 

 culty in forming any decided opinion on that ; my own 

 predilection is to act in absolutely the opposite way from Mik, 

 but I am fully awai^e that by so doing scores of notes which 

 might be of value to existing students are withheld, and 

 run the further risk of never being published at all, while 

 Mik's notes enabled him to keep level with the Dipterological 

 knowledge of the day both as rega^i^ded his owr stiidies and 



