184 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
OBITUARY. 
Tue Rev. E. N. Buoomrierp, M.A. 
THERE passed away on April 29th, 1914, the most lovable and one 
of the most widely known of British entomologists, Edwin Newson 
Bloomfield, in his eighty-seventh year. He was laid to rest among ~ 
the spring flowers that he loved, and ‘“ during the earlier part of the — 
afternoon old and young, rich and poor, could be seen battling their 
way against a stiff breeze to pay honour to one who for over half a 
century had laboured for good in their midst.” He had been rector 
of the village of Guestling, near Hastings, for exactly fifty years, and 
before that time he lived with the family at Great Glemham, in 
Suffolk, which house is still occupied by his brother, Col. Alfred 
Bloomfield, a Justice of Peace for the county in which he owns two 
hundred and fifty acres. Our subject was the son of Edwin 
Bloomfield, and was born as long ago as 1827 at Wrentham, near 
Lowestoft. So far from devoting himself to entomology, he was to 
a greater extent, probably, than any man living in these days of 
specialists, all things to all men throughout the gamut of Natural 
History. In insects he confined his investigations to the indigenous 
species, but in botany he was as familiar with the ornamental 
Coniferze of the garden as with the lowliest wayside flower, all of 
which he could name at a glance. 
His chief hobby was, undoubtedly, the compilation of local 
catalogues, and when the project was mooted in the seventies of 
publishing an account of the Flora and Fauna of Hastings, he 
undertook the flying insects, while Mr. HK. A. Butler compiled the 
ground Orders. Hence it came about that he was always more au 
fait with Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera, than with the 
Coleoptera and Hemiptera, of which, however, he was by no means 
ignorant; his range extended to the mammals, birds, fishes, fungi, 
and I know not how much further. KHceclesiastical architecture also 
received a share of his attention. No great standard work was issued 
by him, yet no standard work appeared without due reference to the 
author’s indebtedness to him for assistance; and a great many of the 
foremost amongst us nowadays owe more than we can say to the 
kindly help given so freely and unostentatiously in our young days. 
His last labour was a detailed compilation upon the Diptera of 
Norfolk and Suffolk, the manuscript of which was sent for completion 
and publication to Mr. Atmore and the writer from the London 
nursing home, when he felt the task beyond his failing power; this 
will appear in the Trans. Norfolk Nat. Society during the present 
year. Last September Mr. Bloomfield wrote to me: “I find I am in 
much better health at home. I am in pretty good health and get — 
about well for my age (eighty-six years), but I find a mile out and 
back is quite enough for me”; this I can picture accompanied by 
the beneficent and radiant smile which will always live in my 
memory—the smile with which he greeted us all in his speech at his 
last public appearance during the Verrall supper of 1913. oilae 
