OBITUARY. 79 



various degrees of perfection, in some cases almost perfect. There 

 seemed no explanation for the resemblances to some species, such as 

 some of the Geometrid forms. — Mr. C. J. Wainwright, a small collec- 

 tion of Chrysids, including Chri/sis viridida, from Wyre Forest ; C. 

 succincta, from St. Ives, Cornwall ; Hedijchridium rosewii, from West 

 Eunton, Norfolk ; Ellampus ccendeiis, from West Eunton ; and West 

 Hide, near Hereford; and Chrijsis pustulosa, from West Hide. — Colbran 

 J. Wainwkight, Hon. Sec. 



EECENT LITEEATURE. 



Insect Life : Souvenirs of a' Naturalist — J.-H Fabre, D.-es-Sc. Trans- 

 lated from the French. By the Author of 'Mademoiselle Mori.' 

 With a Preface by D. Sharp, M.A., F.E.S. Pp. 320. London : 

 Macmillan and Co. 1901. 

 A TRANSLATION generally declares itself as such ; this one does not. 

 Possibly this is due to the fact that, as Mr. Sharp says, Fabre is a 

 difficult writer to translate. The book before us, which pictures to its 

 readers the habits of a few beetles and Hymenoptera, is a translation 

 of the first volume of Fabre's ' Souvenirs Entomologiques,' of which 

 there are now seven series. If all are as interesting as this volume, 

 we hope the rest may soon be presented to us in English garb. The 

 writer is a genuine field-naturalist, and has a charming way of giving 

 the details of his observations in such a way that the reader almost 

 fancies he is making the observations for himself. The ingenuity, 

 too, with which experiments in the field are made to assist the writer 

 in his observations, takes hold of one and keeps his attention fixed in 

 no ordinary manner. There are sixteen full-page pictures, but, 

 though the insects pourtrayed on them are good, we hardly care for 

 the style ; this, however, is perhaps only a matter of taste. 



W. J. L. 



OBITUAEY. 



Charles Lionel de Nic^ville belonged to a noble Huguenot 

 family, and was born at Bristol in 1852. In the year 1876 he pro- 

 ceeded to India, where he commenced the formation of a collection of 

 butterflies, which he sold to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta some years 

 afterwards. He travelled extensively in various parts of India, and at 

 the time of his death had amassed one of the finest private collections 

 of the butterflies of that country, which, we understand, has been 

 purchased by the Indian Museum for Es. 20,000 (about £1300). His 

 first published papers were issued in conjunction with the late Prof. 

 Wood-Mason, but he also published a great number of lists, with 

 descriptions and illustrations of numerous new species of the butterflies 

 of various parts of India, chiefly in the Journal of the Asiatic Society 

 of Bengal, and in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 

 But his most important work was the ' Butterflies of India, Burmah 



