368 OUtuary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



was to provide the chief interest of his life, viz : the Neuroptera (in 

 the broad sense). His first paper on these insects, including a descrip- 

 tion of a new British species, appeared in the "Entomologist's Annual" 

 for 1861 ; here he commends the study of the Pliryganidce to his 

 fellow Lepidopterists " as tending to rectify those habits of careless 

 and superficial examination which have gained for us the reputation of 

 being the least scientific among Entomologists." He certainly acted 

 up to his own recommendation, for throughout his writings, the 

 accurate description of minute structure is a principal characteristic. 

 The papers which had aroused McLachlan's enthusiasm for the 

 Neuroptera were also published by Dr. Hagen in the "Entomologist's 

 Annual," and a frequent correspondence was kept up between the two 

 authors until the death of the latter in 1893. In the Obituary Notice 

 which McLachlan wrote of Dr. Hagen in the "Entomologist's Monthly 

 Magazine," he says : " I was most emphatically his pupil. When he 

 was in London engaged on the compilation of his Bibliotheca I met 

 him for the first time. He took the opportunity of making an 

 examination of the various collections of Neuroptera, and one result 

 was a series of synopses of the British species (all excepting Perlidce), 

 published in the "Entomologist's Annuals" for several years. That 

 on Phryganidce (1859-61) attracted my attention and induced me to 

 study these insects." 



Before 1870, McLachlan had published monographs of most of the 

 families of British Neuroptera and Pseudoneuroptera with the excep- 

 tion of the Odonata, the Ephemeridce, and the Perlidce. The first of 

 these had, he considered, been satisfactorily dealt with by de Selys 

 Longchamps and Hagen. The second, that "most difficult family," 

 to use his own words, he left to his friend A. E. Eaton ; and the third, 

 he hoped, writing in 1868, "to place on the same footing as the 

 groups now finished," a hope destined to be unfulfilled. 



About this time he set to work in earnest to collect materials for 

 his "Monographic Revision and Synopsis of the Trichoptera of the 

 European Fauna." This, the chief work of his life-time, appeared at 

 intervals from 1874 to 1880, and represents an immense amount of 

 careful investigation and diagnosis. It is illustrated by fifty-nine 

 plates of structural detail, chiefly wing neuration and genital arma- 

 tures ; the figures were prepared from his own drawings made under 

 the camera lucida, in numbers amounting to nearly 2,000. The 

 strain of all this minute and careful work was excessive, and his 

 eyesight never entirely recovered; in the preface (p. in) are to be 

 found some of the very few remarks he made on the subject of evolu- 

 tion, and he there points out the great value of the structure of the 

 secondary sexual appendages in affording specific characteristics. 



