Shorter Articles 



J. J. EIVEES 



James John Rivers was born in Winchester, England, January 

 6, 1824, and died at his home in Santa Monica, California, the 

 morning of December 16, 1913, at the ripe age of nearly ninety 

 years. His wife and life-long companion died only a few months 

 before, in May, and it was doubtless this shock which hastened 

 the death of the oldest of the Californian naturalists. He left no 

 near relatives so far as known. 



Not much is known of his early life ; his parents and brothers 

 all died when he was young, and he was left in care of an aunt, 

 from whom he inherited considerable wealth. He was a cousin 

 of Sir John Rivers. J. J. Rivers studied medicine at the 

 University of London, coming under the influence, there, of 

 Thomas Henry Huxley, wliom he greatly admired. He attended 

 Faraday's lectures and became acquainted with Charles Darwin, 

 so it is not to be wondered at that the young man became an 

 enthusiastic naturalist. He graduated from London about 1850 

 and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a student in zoology. 

 His favorite sport at this time was cricket, playing on his aunt's 

 meadow. At Dorking he was apprenticed to a pharmacist, and 

 later went to London again, entering the office of a Dr. Powers, 

 who was a coleopterist. Rivers attended the meetings of the 

 Entomological Society of London and met at these gatherings, 

 Stainton, Douglas, and Roliert McLachlan, at whose house he 

 lived for a time. He knew Francis Walker of the British 

 Museum, and T. Vernon Wollaston, the student of the natural 

 history of the Madeiran Islands. These and other noted natural- 

 ists he knew and associated with, and in later years could relate 

 many interesting anecdotes to his young naturalist friends. He 

 became acquainted with G. R. Crotch, who was in California in 

 the 70 's, and Janson of London was his ideal as a preparator 

 of Coleoptera. 



He lived and collected in Devonshire for a number of years 

 after leaving London, where Crotch visited him in the 50 's. He 

 also collected in Cornwall, North Devon and other places. 



