[Reprinted from 'The Zoologist ' for July, 1912.} 



OBITUAKY. 

 E. W. C. Shelford. 



Zoologists have heard with great regret of the death, on June 

 22nd, of Eobert Walter Campbell Shelford, the leading authority on 

 the Blattida, and a naturalist of very broad interests. 



Shelford was born at Singapore on Aug. 3rd, 1872 — the son of a 

 merchant who was a member of the Legislative Council, and made 

 C.M.G. in recognition of his many public services. There is no 

 evidence that Shelf ord's taste for natural history was inherited, and 

 it did not appear in any other member of the family. Prevented 

 from taking a part in the games and ordinary outdoor pursuits of 

 a boy and a young man, his active mind turned to observation, and 

 he became a naturalist. He was educated privately until he entered 

 King's College, London, and later Emmanuel College, Cambridge. 

 At Cambridge, where he took a second in both parts of the Natural 

 Science Tripos, he received a solid foundation for the excellent zoolo- 

 gical work of his mature years. 



After taking his degree he became, in 1895, a Demonstrator in 

 Biology, under Professor L. C. Miall, at the Yorkshire College, Leeds. 

 In 1897 he went to Borneo as Curator of the Sarawak Museum, 

 established by Rajah Brooke at Kuching. During his seven years' 

 tenure of this position he availed himself to the full of the many 

 opportunities for studying the animal life of the tropics, and of 

 making observations in anthropology, a subject which always strongly 

 attracted him. His fruitful labours in the increase and arrangement 

 of the Sarawak Museum naturally led him to take a wide survey of 

 the animal kingdom, and he soon began the study of Mimicry, which 

 unites under one point of view the insects of many diverse groups and 

 their vertebrate enemies. He found Borneo a very rich and imper- 

 fectly explored field for the study of this subject, and before long he 

 entered into a regular correspondence with me, sending large con- 

 signments of mimetic insects for investigation and determination. 

 The result of this work was the appearance of his important paper in 

 the ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society for 1902 (p. 230). This 

 interesting monograph is illustrated by five coloured plates showing 

 Bornean mimetic insects of the most varied groups. The outcome 

 of the correspondence was his desire to work in the Hope Depart- 

 ment when his seven years in Borneo came to an end in 1905. 

 Towards the close of this period he wrote to me saying that if it was 



