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OPE aie UP Ay Evy. 
R. W. C. SHELFORD. 
Zoovoeists have heard with great regret of the death, on June 
22nd, of Robert Walter Campbell Shelford, the leading authority on 
the Blattide, and a naturalist of very broad interests. 
Shelford was born at Singapore on Aug. 3rd, 1872—the son of a 
merchant who was a member of the Legislative Council, and made 
C.M.G. in recognition of his many public services. There is no 
evidence that Shelford’s taste for natural history was inherited, and 
it did not appear in any other member of the family. Prevented 
from taking a part in the games and ordinary outdoor pursuits of 
a boy and a young man, his active mind turned to observation, and 
he became a naturalist. He was educated privately until he entered 
King’s College, London, and later Emmanuel College, Cambridge. 
At Cambridge, where he took a second in both parts of the Natural 
Science Tripos, he received a solid foundation for the excellent zoolo- 
gical work of his mature years. 
After taking his degree he became, in 1895, a Demonstrator in 
Biology, under Professor L. C. Miall, at the Yorkshire College, Leeds. 
In 1897 he went to Borneo as Curator of the Sarawak Museum, 
established, by Rajah Brooke at Kuching. During his seven years’ 
tenure of this position he availed himself to the full of the many 
opportunities for studying the animal life of the tropics, and of 
making observations in anthropology, a subject which always strongly 
attracted him. His fruitful labours in the increase and arrangement 
of the Sarawak Museum naturally led him to take a wide survey of 
the animal kingdom, and he soon began the study of Mimicry, which 
unites under one point of view the insects of many diverse groups and 
their vertebrate enemies. He found Borneo a very rich and imper- 
fectly explored field for the study of this subject, and before long he 
entered into a regular correspondence with me, sending large con- 
signments of mimetic insects for investigation and determination. 
The result of this work was the appearance of his important paper in 
the ‘ Proceedings’ of the Zoological Society for 1902 (p. 230). This 
interesting monograph is illustrated by five coloured plates showing 
Bornean mimetic insects of the most varied groups. The outcome 
of the correspondence was his desire to work in the Hope Depart- 
ment when his seven years in Borneo came to an end in 1905. 
Towards the close of this period he wrote to me saying that if it was 
Zool. 4th ser. vol. XVI., July, 1912. Yi 
