DAVID SHARP. 21 'J 



the Athenaeum of 1, 8, and 15 December 1866, and gives Sharp's 

 views at the time on this subject. A Revision of the British Species 

 of Homalota (Goleoptera) was published by the Entom. Soc. of 

 London soon after his graduation at Edinburgh. In November 

 1873 appeared a paper in Spanish— Especies nuevas de Coleopteros 

 por Don David Sharp. This refers to insects collected by his 

 friend G. K. Crotch, whose obituary notice Sharp contributed to 

 volume xi of theEntom. Monthly Magazine. The Object andMethod 

 of Zoological Nomenclature appeared in November 1873. This is 

 an important and well thought out paper on a debateable subject, 

 the argument of which is perhaps summed up in the sentence, 

 " Nomina si nescis, perit et cognitio rerum," which appears on 

 the cover. A short paper on the Coleoptera of the Scotch Fir 

 came out in the Scottish Naturalist about this time. The 

 Dascillidce of New Zealand was published in the Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History in July 1878 ; while work on the 

 water-beetles was taken in hand for publication by the Koyal 

 Society of Dublin. Sharp and Fowler's Catalogue of the British 

 Coleoptera appeared in 1893 ; the Rhynchophorous Coleoptera of 

 Japan in 1896 ; the articles Insecta and Termites in the Enc3 , clo-v' 

 psedia Britannica in 1902 ; and an article on the Orders of Insects, 

 a subject in which Sharp was much interested, in the Entomo- 

 logist for 1909. The Distribution of Plants and Animals on the 

 Globe (a paper read before the Dumfries Nat. Hist. Society in 

 1883) : Stridulation in Ants, 1893; an Account of the Phasmidce, 



1898 ; and the Grouse-fig, 1907, are away from his special order 

 — Coleoptera; while A Scheme for a National System of Rest- 

 Funds (or Pensions) for Working People (1892) shows that Sharp 

 could detach himself from entomology when he wished to do so. 



We have still to notice the larger works, on which the author's 

 claim to distinction chiefly rests. Papers on the Coleoptera of 

 the Hawaiian Islands had been published by the Entom. Soc. 

 of London in 1878, 1879 and 1880. These were followed in 



1899 and 1908 by the Fauna Hawaiiensis brought out by the 

 Royal Society. Of even more importance is the Beetles of Central 

 America, prepared chiefly from material collected by Godman 

 and Salvin, and published in 1894 and later years in that 

 monumental work known as the "Fauna Centrali-Americana." 

 In 1895 appeared the first volume of the Insecta in the 

 Cambridge Natural History, this being followed by the second 

 volume in 1899. Of their influence on the advancement of 

 entomology, and especially of our knowledge of insects as living 

 things, too much cannot be said. Their enormous sale has 

 prevented the appearance of a new edition, which their author 

 would have liked to bring out. One point especially which he 

 wished to emend was the classification of insects into Natural 

 Orders, his views and suggestions on which will be found in 

 the paper in the Entomologist to which reference has already 



