24 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Waltham Cross (Ent. Mo. Mag. vol. xliii. p. 16), in whose cabinets 

 they still remain. — W. G. 



Peter Cameron. 



Peter Cameron is dead, as was announced by most of the 

 halfpenny papers on December 4th. What can we say of his life ? 

 Nothing ; for it concerns us in no way. What shall we say of his 

 work ? Much ; for it is entirely ours, and will go down to posterity 

 as probably the most prolific and chaotic output of any individual for 

 many years past. The analogy between his writings and those of 

 Francis Walker is remarkable : both contained excellent, close and 

 conscientious investigations in their earlier stages, and towards the 

 last became the most obvious scourings of a badly balanced mind. 

 In the latter respect Walker was by far the more blameworthy, for 

 he was a cultured gentleman, and could have no excuse for such 

 lamentable deterioration, whereas in our subject's case one is simply 

 left wondering at the multitudinous, though usually quite short, 

 papers annually found beneath his name in the ' Zoological Record.' 

 Probably his best work is that by which alone he will be known at 

 home, his ' British Phytophagous Hymenoptera,' published by the 

 Ray Society many years ago. But already in the Hymenopterous 

 part of the ' Biologia of Central America ' lapses are numerous ; and, 

 by the time that Hymenoptera Orientalia appeared, we see him to 

 have quite given up any attempt at systematics, and ignoring all 

 palaearctic authors, of whom he never possessed an intimate acquaint- 

 ance, he launches forth to erect a disjointed classification of his own. 

 From first to last his ignorance of European literature was deplorable, 

 and from one of his first papers upon exotic forms (Trans. Nat. Hist. 

 Soc. Glasgow, 1883, p. 272, in which the abundant European 

 Ichneumon leucomelas of Gmelin, 1790, is brought forward as new 

 under the name Ambly teles ludovicus) to the last one published 

 before his death (Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. Wales, 1912, p. 187, in 

 which the South European Campoplex canescens of Gravenhorst, 

 1829, is brought forward as new under the name Amorphota epJiestice) 

 synonymy is rife. We trust the powers that be will acquire the 

 hundred and twenty boxes said to have been found in his lodging, 

 since types alone can, and that but slowly, rectify the chaos created. 



Claude Morley. 



With much regret we have to announce the death, on November 

 29th last, of Monsieur Georges Celestin Edouard Brabant, of 

 Cambrai (Nord), in his sixty-fourth year. Although nearly all 

 branches of natural history received his attention, he devoted him- 

 self largely to the collection and study of Lepidoptera ; he published 

 descriptions of new species, belonging to this order, from French 

 Guinea, one of the many countries that he visited to acquire material 

 and knowledge. 



