THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 237 
its ambitious programme, and the known zeal, perseverance, 
and energy, of its projector—perhaps has no equal in the 
annals of entomological Science. Mr. Crotch was the grand- 
son of Dr. Crotch, so celebrated as a musical composer; the 
son of the Rev. Mr. Crotch, of Uphill House, Weston-super- 
Mare; and the brother of Dr. W. D. Crotch, who has attained a 
European celebrity by his labours in Natural History, more 
especially in Coleopterous insects, of which he discovered 
numerous new species,—forty-four in the Island of Canary 
alone,—as recorded by Mr. Wollaston in his ‘ Catalogue of 
the Coleopterous Insects of the Canaries,’ published in 1864. 
Mr. G. R. Crotch was born in the year 1841, and very early 
exhibited the characteristics which so eminently distin- 
guished him in after life: indefatigable industry in pursuit 
of a beloved Science, and perfect disregard of his own 
personal comfort, and even health. These attributes were so 
remarkable as to take the form of an eccentricity,—meat, 
drink, and rest, seemed to him matters of indifference: if 
night found him on what he considered good collecting 
ground, rather than leave it, with the intention of returning 
on the morrow, he has been known to lie down under the 
shelter of a hay-stack or sedge-stack in the fens, and there 
remain, until the return of daylight enabled him to resume 
his labours. This devotion to Entomology continued and 
increased, until it became the absorbing passion and occu- 
pation of his life. At first he seems to have given his 
attention more especially to British Lepidoptera; and his 
first contribution to entomological literature was on a butter- 
fly, generally esteemed of rare or accidental occurrence, 
Thecla Betula, which he observed in great abundance flying 
round the tops of high trees in company with its congener 
T. Quercus. This was in 1856, and three years later he 
searched the fen districts of Cambridgeshire: here he dis- 
covered Leucania Elymi; and here, too, he gave the first 
instance of that perseverance, skill, and thoroughness, in. 
collecting Coleoptera, which subsequently became his dis- 
linguishing characteristic. 
In 1862 he published his first notice of ants’-nest beetles, 
and from that time he seems to have given no rest to his 
hands, to his pen, or to his mind. 
_ In 1863 he published the first edition of ‘ Catalogue of 
