184 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



OBITUARY. 



The Eev. B. N. Bloomfield, M.A. 



There passed away on April 29th, 1914, the most lovable and one 

 of the most widely known of British entomologists, Edwin Newson 

 Bloomfield, in his eighty-seventh year. He was laid to rest among 

 the spring flowers that he loved, and " during the earlier part of the 

 afternoon old and young, rich and poor, could be seen battling their 

 way against a stiff breeze to pay 'honour to one who for over half a 

 century had laboured for good in their midst." He had been rector 

 of the village of Guestling, near Hastings, for exactly fifty years, and 

 before that time he lived with the family at Great Glemham, in 

 Suffolk, which house is still occupied by his brother. Col. Alfred 

 Bloomfield, a Justice of Peace for the county in which he owns two 

 hundred and fifty acres. Our subject was the son of Edwin 

 Bloomfield, and was born as long ago as 1827 at "Wrentham, near 

 Lowestoft. So far from devoting himself to entomology, he was to 

 a greater extent, probably, than any man living in these days of 

 specialists, all things to all men throughout the gamut of Natural 

 History. In insects he confined his investigations to the indigenous 

 species, but in botany he was ■ as familiar with the ornamental 

 Coniferae of the garden as with the lowliest wayside flower, all of 

 which he could name at a glance. 



His chief hobby was, undoubtedly, the compilation of local 

 catalogues, and when the project was mooted in the seventies of 

 pubhshing an account of the Flora and Fauna of Hastings, he 

 undertook the flying insects, while Mr. E. A. Butler compiled the 

 ground Orders. Hence it came about that he was always more au 

 fait with Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera, than with the 

 Coleoptera and Hemiptera, of which, however, he was by no means 

 ignorant ; his range extended to the mammals, birds, fishes, fungi, 

 and I know not how much further. Ecclesiastical architecture also 

 received a share of his attention. No great standard work was issued 

 by him, yet no standard work appeared without due reference to the 

 author's indebtedness to him for assistance ; and a great many of the 

 foremost amongst us nowadays owe more than we can say to the 

 kindly help given so freely and unostentatiously in our young days. 

 His last labour was a detailed compilation upon the Diptera of 

 Norfolk and Suffolk, the manuscript of which was sent for completion 

 and publication to Mr. Atmore and the writer from the London 

 nursing home, when he felt the task beyond his failing power ; this 

 will appear in the Trans. Norfolk Nat. Society during the present 

 year. Last September Mr. Bloomfield wrote to me : " I find I am in 

 much better health at home. I am in pretty good health and get 

 about well for my age (eighty-six years), but I find a mile out and 

 back is quite enough for me"; this I can picture accompanied by 

 the beneficent and radiant smile which will always live in my 

 memory — the smile with which he greeted us all in his speech at his 

 last public appearance during the Verrall supper of 1913. 



C. M. 



