158 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June^ 



the London journals chiefly on entomology and stories of animal life. 

 He also did some writing for Punch. His health soon became so preca- 

 rious that three of the best physicians in London told him he must die in 

 less than three months of pulmonary consumption, tubercles having been 

 fully formed on his lungs. On the advice of his physician he started for 

 Australia, and was so ill that he had to be slung up in a chair on deck. 

 When once on shipboard he threw his medicine overboard without having 

 opened the parcels and declined the advice of the ship surgeon. In a few 

 weeks he was nearly well. Arriving in Adelaide he spent some time in 

 collecting bird skins and other specimens to send home to Dean Buck- 

 land. He then went to Melbourne, where he bought a small farm, but 

 the gold fever broke out and he went to mining. He made a good deal 

 of money at the diggings, realized ,^12,000 profit on his farm, and started 

 for Otago, New Zealand. There he took up 100,000 acres of land far 

 back from civilization and stocked it with sheep and cattle. He had been 

 a good deal among the natives of Australia and knew a little of their 

 language and picked up a stray black in Otago who followed him like a 

 dog and was very useful in getting specimens and minding sheep. They 

 were so isolated on the ranch that they lost the days of the week and the 

 months of the year, but in the end he again lost his health and took his 

 family (I do not know where or when he was married) up to Auckland 

 and bought a beautiful place some twenty miles in the country. Here 

 the Maori War broke out and he was offered a captain's commission, in 

 an infantry regiment, which he declined. He afttrwards took a carbine 

 and sword m Col. Nixon's flying brigade, which led the van. He was 

 disabled early in the war. After the war he owned and commanded a 

 small coast vessel, and after his children grew up (six sons and six daugh- 

 ters) he moved farther away from the city to another tract of land where, 

 after many a stirring adventure with the Maori natives, among others 

 having his house burned down twice over his head, he finally succeeded 

 in civilizing the place, and lived there for many years. In 1889 he lost 

 his property through the old mistake of endorsing a friend and moved ta 

 the spot where, I understand, he died. 



Writing in February, 1891, he says: " My good wife, thank God, is still 

 by my side, and my twelve children are not only alive and well, but there 

 are vast lots of grandchildren always climbing over me, and I have also, 

 what I like so well, a magnificent scenery and plenty of animals. I spend 

 most of my time either fighting the codling moth, or writing for journals, 

 and trying in that way to do a little good work, but I fear to a very little 

 purpose." 



Mr. Wight's health must have failed him seriously some years back, 

 for, although he used to be a constant correspondent, the writer had not 

 heard from him since September, 1892. His contributions on the subject 

 of insects, mainly published in the columns ot the New Zealand Farmer, 

 were admirably adapted to his audience. They were always extremely 

 readable, and the advice which he gave for treating injurious insects was 



