November io, 192, 



NA TURE 



697 



Obituary. 



The Hon. N. C. Rothschild. 



BY the death on October 12, at the age of forty-six, 

 of the Hon. Nathaniel Charles Rothschild, younger 

 son of the first Lord Rothschild, Nature in a literal sense, 

 entomology, and, it may be added, tropical medicine 

 have each sustained a formidable blow. For Mr. 

 Rothschild, whose career demonstrated in striking 

 fashion that the pursuit of business is by no means 

 incompatible with scientific achievement of the first 

 rank, was at one and the same time an active partner 

 in the firm of Messrs. N. M. Rothschild and Sons ; the 

 mainstay of the Society for the Promotion of Nature 

 Reserves, to which he contributed practically all the 

 funds at its disposal ; and the leading authority on the 

 Siphonaptera, or fleas, certain species of which are 

 responsible for the dissemination of plague. 



In 1895, on leaving Harrow, where, in conjunction 

 with the late J. L. Bonhote, he had already while still 

 a schoolboy produced a volume on the local butterflies 

 and moths, Charles Rothschild went up to Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, where three years later he obtained 

 honours in Part I. of the Natural Sciences Tripos. 

 After entering the City, besides devoting himself to his 

 more immediate interests at New Court, Mr. Roth- 

 iiild became chairman of the Alliance Assurance 

 impany. The outbreak of the War caused him 

 become closely connected with, and to undertake 

 most important work for, more than one Government 

 Department ; and his father's various duties, which 

 were assumed by Mr. Rothschild on the death of the 

 former in the spring of 1915, added to the strain of his 

 many responsibilities. Overwork, cruelly prolonged, 

 resulted in 1916 in a nervous breakdown, and from this 

 Charles Rothschild never fully recovered; so that his 

 lamented death at a comparatively early age was clearly 

 an after-result of the War. 



Mr. Rothschild, who was a Justice of the Peace and 

 1(1 been High Sheriff for Northamptonshire, was also 

 lieutenant for the City of London, and was president 

 the Entomological Society of London in 191 5 and 

 ,16. In addition, he was a fellow or member of many 

 icntific and learned societies both at home and abroad, 

 and had been a member of the honorary committee of 

 management of the Imperial Bureau of Entomology, 

 from the formation of the latter, as the Entomological 

 Research (.'ommittee, in 1909. His presidential address 

 to the Entomological Society on January 19, 1916, 

 consisted in the main of an earnest plea for the pre- 

 servation of many species among the British fauna and 

 flora, now fast di.sappearing, or on the verge of, at any 

 rate, local extinction ; and appealed for support for the 

 Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves, and for 

 the work of the National Trust for the Preservation of 

 Places of Natural Beauty or Historical Interest. 



Even in these days of specialisation, it is given to 

 few zoological systematists to possess an encyclopaedic 

 and practically unique knowledge of an entire group. 

 But Charles Rothschild soon became, as he remained 

 until the end, the leading authority upon Siphonaptera ; 

 and to him, more than to any other, existing, accurate 

 knowledge of the fleas of the world is due. Prior to 

 Rothschild's day, the study of Siphonaptera lagged far 

 behind that of most other orders of insects, and in fact. 



with a few notable exceptions, such as Taschenberg and 

 C. F. Baker, had been almost entirely neglected by 

 entomologists. Rothschild, however, was a prolific 

 writer upon his favourite subject, and, while steadily 

 accumulating his unrivalled collection of fleas, both 

 exotic and endemic, he continued for a quarter of a 

 century to diagnose and describe his material in a series 

 of papers and monographs of the utmost value. The 

 first papers by Mr. Rothschild on Siphonaptera (diag- 

 noses of two new species of British fleas) appeared in 

 1897, when their author was but twenty years of age. 

 Subsequently his interest was extended to the Siphon- 

 aptera of the entire world, and, in the interval between 

 the appearance of his earliest contributions and last 

 year, when the latest memoir written by him (a report 

 upon the Siphonaptera collected by the Norwegian 

 Expedition to Novaya Zemlya in 1921) was published, 

 he was responsible, either singly or in conjunction with 

 Dr. K. Jordan, his gifted collaborator, for a very large 

 number of authoritative contributions to the literature 

 of this group of ectoparasites. 



Some ten years ago Mr. Rothschild, who was a 

 generous and frequent benefactor to the Natural History 

 Departments of the British Museum, presented to the 

 Trustees of that institution his entire collection of 

 Siphonaptera and other ectoparasites, with the proviso 

 that the collection should remain in his hands during 

 his lifetime. It is understood that the donor also set 

 apart a sum of money, the interest of which, when the 

 collection is handed over to the nation, is to be applied 

 to its maintenance and improvement. E. E. A. 



NU. 



1819, VOL. 112] 



Mr. William Thomson. 



Mr. William Thomson, F.R.S.(Ed.), F.I.C., the 

 eminent Manchester consulting chemist and analyst, 

 who died suddenly in his Laboratory' on October 4, was 

 a prominent figure in the chemical circles of Manchester 

 and London during the last fifty years. Born in 1851 in 

 Glasgow, he went to Manchester in 1869, and entered as 

 assistant to Dr. Crace-Calvert at the Royal Institution 

 Laboratory in Princess Street. Four years later, on 

 August 25, 1873, at the age of twenty-two, he became 

 a partner in the firm of Crace-Calvert and Thomson, 

 and on the death of Dr. Crace-Calvert two months 

 afterwards, took sole charge of the practice, and 

 combined with this the ofiice of public analvst for 

 Stockport, which he continued to tlic lim. Of his 

 death. 



Mr. Thomson joined the Manchester Liu...,. ..m] 

 Philosophical Society in 1873, and served on the council 

 for many years, acting as president from 191 7 to 1919. 

 The Society is the richer for his contributions on different 

 subjects of scientific interest, some of which during his 

 lifetime developed into renowned discoveries. Only 

 in November of last year he presented to the Society 

 the actual tubes containing sulphides of calcium 

 barium, etc., with which in 1877 he brought to the 

 notice of Sir William Crookes the phosphorescent 

 properties of these substances. They proved to be 

 the first of three steps which led to the discovery of 

 X-rays by Prof. Rontgcn. He is also known for his 

 work on the detection of arsenic in beer during the 



