:?01 



OBITUARY. 



The Reverend Thomas Blackburn. 



On May 19th, 1912, at Woodville Vicarage, Adelaide, South 

 Australia, the Rev. Thomas Blackburn, one of the honorary 

 members of the Hawaiian Entomological Society, died at the 

 age of more than 70 years. 



Mr. Blackbnrn can jnstly be styled the father of Hawaiian 

 entomology, for his pioneer work revealed the highly interesting 

 endemism of our fanna, and eventually led to the systematic 

 exploration by Dr. Perkins, and the publication of the "Fauna 

 Hawaiiensis." His residence in the Hawaiian Islands extended 

 over nearly six years (1876-1882) but his duties as Chaplain 

 to the Bishop and as Senior Priest of the cathedral, allowed 

 very little opportunity for entomological explorations. He 

 availed himself of e.very oportunity, however, visiting each of 

 the larger islands and doing more or less collecting thereon, 

 though his main collecting was done on Oahu, as his residence 

 was chiefly at Honolulu, from where he made trips almost fort- 

 nightly to the neighboring mountains. On Kauai, he spent only 

 four days; on Molokai but a few hours. To Maui he made 

 several visits of a few days each, taken altogether amounting to 

 42 days. He had a week on Lanai, and two trips to Hawaii of 

 17 days and 6 days respectively. 



Of the collections made, the Coleoptera were worked up by 

 himself and Dr. David Sharp; the Lepidoptera by Mr. A. G. 

 Butler; the Hymenoptera by himself, Mr. Peter Cameron and 

 Mr. W. F. Kirby ; the Xeuroptera by himself and Mr. R. Mc- 

 Lachlan ; the Hemiptera by himself and Mr. F. B. White ; the 

 Orthoptera by Mr. A. de Bormans. Apparently he did not col- 

 lect in the other Orders of insects. As the result of his collect- 

 ing, the number of beetles known in the Hawaiian Islands was 

 increased to 428 species, 352 of wdiich were not known else- 

 where. The number of species in the other Orders was sub- 

 stantially raised also, but not to the same extent as the Coleoptera 

 for he was particularly interested in this group. 



Many species in several different Orders of insects have been 

 named for the man who was the first to do important work on the 

 entomological fauna of these Islands. In Coleoptera there are 

 15 species and 1 genus; in Lepidoptera o species; in Hymenop- 

 tera 4 species : in Xeuroptera 2 species : in Orthoptera 1 species ; 

 and in Hemiptera 3 species. Altogether, 1 genus and -IS si)ecies. 



