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THE ZOOLOGIST. 



MEMOIR OF THE LATE H. W. BATES, F.R.S. 



From the official position so long held by Mr. Henry Walter 

 Bates, as Assistant Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, 

 few men were better known in scientific circles than he was. 



Everyone who contemplated travelling (in the proper sense 

 of the word) made a point of consulting him before starting, and 

 on their return would seek his advice as to the best mode of 

 utilising and making known the results of the experience they 

 had gained. 



Mr. Bates was not merely a geographer ; he was also a 

 traveller, and a very distinguished one. He knew by experience 

 some of the difficulties and obstacles that have to be encountered 

 by explorers of tropical countries, and the advice which he was 

 able to give to intending voyagers was on this account all the 

 more valuable. Moreover he was a naturalist by choice and 

 inclination, and although, as is the fashion now-a-days, he was 

 of necessity a specialist (his knowledge of Coleoptera placing him 

 in the first rank of entomologists), his general knowledge of 

 zoology, much of it gained by personal observation, rendered his 

 opinion valuable when sought for by intending collectors. From 

 his earliest youth his taste and zeal for natural history were made 

 apparent, and were not to be extinguished by any of the rebuffs 

 and difficulties which it were his fate to encounter. 



Born at Leicester in 1825, the son of a manufacturer of that 

 town, he was intended for a business career. In those days the 

 education of tradesmen's sons did not extend beyond the age of 

 fourteen, and at this age, as soon as he had left school, Bates 

 was apprenticed to a hosiery manufacturer, Mr. Gregory, of 

 Leicester. He had long hours to keep — from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. — 

 but this did not deter him from seizing every opportunity of im- 

 proving his mind, both before he commenced his daily work, and 

 after he had left off. Fortunately for him he was able to derive 

 great assistance from an educational institution in Leicester 

 known as the Mechanics' Institute. Here he had the benefit of 

 a good library, and attended evening classes taught by competent 

 masters, the result being that he eventually acquired a knowledge 

 of Greek and Latin, French and English composition, which 

 placed him in front of most of his fellow-students. It was no 



