OBITUARY. 127 



suffix -oidecB is applied), bibliography, dates, and other pertinent 

 matters are duly noticed. Mr. Kirkaldy's Cimicidae is what has 

 hitherto been known under the name Pentatomidse, and cai'e must 

 now be exercised not to confuse our old nocturnal enemy with his 

 Gimex (Picromerus, olim) bidens, concerning which references are 

 given to the speratozoa, ovaries, teratology, and such varied foods as 

 . birch, ling, sallow, larvae of sawflies, of Chrysoraelid beetles, of lace- 

 wing flies, and even its erstwhile namesake. Clinocoris {Gimex, olim) 

 lectularius, L. That Mr. Kirkaldy's peculiar ideas respecting priority 

 will stand the test of time, doubt must be expressed ; but that he has 

 produced a work of the greatest and most lasting value to heter- 

 opterists is undeniable. Dufour's remark, which is claimed to be 

 still true when the preface was penned, that " cet ordre d'insectes se 

 trouve un des plus negliges, des plus arri6res," is certainly falsified 

 by the very production of this Catalogue. Douglas, Scott, and 

 Saunders have laboured since this quotation was written, but Kirk- 

 aldy attempted a greater work than them all. Stall failed to com- 

 plete more than five volumes; Lethierry and Severin produced but 

 three of their 'Catalogue G6n6ral des Hemiptferes' (1893-4-6). That 

 before us is the fullest, and, unfortunately, it stands alone. Ars longa, 

 vita brevis ! qx ^t 



OBITUARY. 



Albert Pipfard. — The deceased's father collected Lepidoptera, 

 and was a good all-round entomologist ; his favourite haunts were 

 the woods around Paris, before the construction of the Versailles 

 Eailway, long since felled. His collections passed to Mr. Bernard 

 Piffard, of Brockenhurst, the deceased's elder brother, who subse- 

 quently gave them away in the New Forest. At the time of the 

 Franco-Prussian War, Albert Piffard" was living in France, but he 

 then took up his residence at Felden, near Boxmoor, in Herts, where 

 he lived to the time of his death on December 5th last, at the age of 

 seventy-five. The family are Huguenot, descending from a great- 

 grandfather, a citizen of Geneva, who took out patents of EngHsh 

 naturalization in order to acquire land here. There is no other 

 family of the name in Britain. Albert's mother was a Miss Sabine, 

 born in December, 1834, and collected beetles in 1845 ; she used to 

 find Grioceris merdigera, when a girl, on lilies in the garden of the 

 Manor House, Islington, and noticed both its smell and stridulation. 

 .Our subject was articled to Robert Wilson, Q.C., at the age of 



- It is of interest to mention, since many appear under misapprehension 

 on the subject (Mr. Piffard told me in 1900, while I was staying at Felden), 

 that Herbert E. Cox, the author of the well-known coleopterous 'Handbook,' 

 was an independent gentleman, who married early in life ; a very handsome 

 man, whose children were off his hands about 1894, and he then permanently 

 went abroad. At that time he was studying foreign Coleoptera, and bought 

 somewhat largely at Stevens's. He wrote his standard work in about two 

 years, while residing at Harrow, and was a strong Unitarian — hence the in- 

 teresting dedication. Should this meet his eye, we trust Mr. Cox will 

 forgive the liberty taken ; it is our informant's, and not his, obituary we 

 write. 



