﻿THE LATE JOSEPH SUGAR BALY. 199 



will mourn his loss as a colleague and a friend. The deceased 

 gentleman leaves behind him a widow, one son (Mr. Price Baly), 

 and five daughters." 



The above information is, we believe, correct, except in one 

 or two minor entomological points, and we are able to add some 

 details about Mr. Baly as an entomologist. 



He was not a field-collector, and seems to have paid little or 

 no attention to Entomology till he was approaching middle life. 

 After he commenced medical practice, he was much interested in 

 microscopic work, and possessed what was at that time a splendid 

 instrument, fully provided with all the apparatus for the investi- 

 gation of opaque objects, and he was expert in its manipulation. 

 This it was that led to his becoming an entomologist. About the 

 year 1850 he visited Mr. S. Stevens, in Bloomsbury Street, in 

 search of objects for his microscope, and he purchased a small 

 collection of Indian Hymenoptera. He entered into a corre- 

 spondence with Mr. H. W. Bates, who was then in the Amazon 

 Valley, and in the course of this informed Mr. Bates that the 

 marvels of insect- structure revealed by his microscope led him 

 to devote himself more exclusively to Entomology. At that time 

 the collections made by Wallace in the Malay Archipelago and 

 by Bates in the Amazon Valley were arriving in this country, 

 and Baly having a series of the phytophagous Coleoptera from 

 them, found full occupation for his leisure time in the examination 

 and description of the crowd of novelties contained in these and 

 other acquisitions. There was in the Phytophaga, alone, more 

 than work for one man, and Baly appears to have endeavoured 

 to do this work, so far as it was in his power. He was a patient 

 and enthusiastic entomological worker ; and when in practice in 

 the suburbs of London, and called to see a patient in the small 

 hours, he would on his return home spend the remainder of the 

 night in his study, instead of going to sleep. 



He joined the Entomological Society of London in the year 

 1850, and he also became a member of the Entomological Club. 

 His writings on Phytophaga are known throughout the world, 

 and he described an enormous number of new species of the 

 group. At the time he commenced amassing a collection, little 

 was known of the Entomology of the tropics ; and it is probable 

 that neither he nor anyone else realised the enormous number of 

 species that would have to be dealt with. As these continued to 

 arrive, in apparently ever-increasing numbers, an ordinary man 

 would have been dismayed, and might have abandoned the task 

 he had undertaken as being hopeless of accomplishment; but 

 Baly worked on quietly and steadily, and has, undoubtedly, 

 accomplished much. 



Many years ago, Mr. Baly disposed of his collection of 

 Cassididjc to Mr. E. W. Janson ; and about the same time, or 

 subsequently, the Sagridie, Chrysomelidse, Eumolpidsc, and 



