SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



49 



JOHN JENNER WEIR, F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.E.S., F.R.H.S. 



HP HE late Jenner Weir was born on August gth, 

 1S22, and died suddenly at his residence at 

 Beckenham, Kent, on Good Friday last, March 

 23rd, in his seventy-second year. Mr. "Weir's genial 

 presence will be much missed at the numerous 

 scientific meetings where he was usually a regular 

 attendant. Especially will this be so by the begin- 

 ners in the study of several branches of the natural 

 sciences, who found in him a ready and pleasant 

 preceptor who rarely failed to impart required 

 information with 

 correctness and 

 kindly words of 

 encouragement. 



Jenner We i r 

 was born at 

 Lewes, in Sussex, 

 and was not the 

 only talented son 

 of his parents, 

 for he had for 

 younger brother 

 the well-known 

 naturalist -artist, 

 Harrison Weir, 

 whose delightful 

 sketches of ani- 

 mals and other 

 objects of nature 

 have been so 

 familiar to us for 

 many years past. 

 Happily, Mr. 

 Harrison Weir 

 survives his late 

 brother. 



Whether as 

 zoologist, botan- 

 ist, horticultur- 

 ist, or especially 

 as lepidopterist, 

 Jenner Weir may 

 be said to have 

 been an autho- 

 rity. The regret for his loss is the greater because 

 the wide mass of knowledge he had acquired from 

 patient observation and ardent study passes away 

 with him. It was seldom that he could be induced 

 to write on any subject, but when he did so, his 

 conciseness and accuracy were remarkable. We 

 have cause for real sorrow at his sudden death, for 

 he had only a few days previously promised two 

 important articles for these pages, one being upon 

 the hybridization of mammals, a subject with which 

 few were more familiar. His system of study was 



Photo bv~\ 



John Jenner Weir. 



to take up some particular group and give to it his 

 close attention for a time, until he had mastered it 

 generally, and then to add to that stock of know- 

 ledge at intervals, as occasion afterwards arose. 

 In the same way he would each season cultivate 

 every variety obtainable of one group of plants, 

 such as iris, or narcissus. Variation had for him a 

 fascination of the deepest character, and it mattered 

 not whether it was in animal or in plant. 



The first systematic study taken up by Jenner 



Weir was ento- 

 mology, in the 

 summer of 1843; 

 and his first com- 

 munication on 

 the subject was to 

 the " Zoologist," 

 and dated June 

 14th, 1845. In 

 the latter part of 

 1844 he paid his 

 first visit to the 

 Entomological 

 Society of Lon- 

 don, and was 

 elected a member 

 in January, 1845. 

 For many years 

 he worked es- 

 pecially at the 

 micro -lepidop- 

 tera, but in 1870, 

 through an un- 

 fortunate acci- 

 dent to one of 

 his thumbs, Mr. 

 Weir had to 

 abandon the 

 setting - out of 

 these small 

 moths. His first 

 paper was read 

 before the Ento- 

 mological So- 

 ciety of London on March 1st, 1869 ; it was on a 

 series of experiments on the relations between 

 insects and insectivorous birds. These experiments 

 were carried on during 1868 at the suggestion of 

 Dr. A. R. Wallace, and a further paper was read 

 on the same subject in 1S70. His association with 

 the Entomological Society was much to its benefit, 

 for Mr. Weir was twice its vice-president, seven 

 years treasurer, and many times on the council 

 after 1849. The Linnean Society included him 

 among its fellows on March 2nd, 1S65, and he was 



[Maul & Fox. 



