The Humming Bird. 29 



student of the bearings of the phenomena he witnessed 

 in his investigations of the rich Amazonian fauna. 



On the question of the Origin of Species and 

 cognate matters, a close friendship existed between him and 

 Charles Darwin, as the writings of the latter abundantly 

 show. That he was a thorough evolutionist is certain, that 

 he remained a believer in natural selection as the sole factor 

 in the Origin of Species may be not so certain. 



In 1862 he produced his memoir on Mimetic Eessem- 

 blances as illustrated by the Heliconidac, which took the 

 world by surprise. After that f nearly the whole of his spare 

 time was devoted to Systematic Entomology. At first the 

 Rhopalocera engaged his attention, especially the Papilioni- 

 dae and Erycinidae, his Catalogue of the latter having been 

 adopted as a basis by succeeding authors. 



About ten years ago he sold his collection of butterflies 

 to Messrs. Godman and Salvin, "since liberally given by 

 these gentlemen to the British Museum, with their own col- 

 lection," and thenceforth occupied himself with Colcoptera; 

 especially Cicindelidae, Carabidae, Scarabaeidae, and 

 Cerambycidae. On these families his publications have 

 been excessively numerous, for they concerned the whole 

 world. They appeared chiefly in the principal scientific 

 papers published in England, such as the Proceedings cf 

 the Zoological Society, the Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History , and many others. 



There is scarcely a Volume of the Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine in which his contributions do not 

 appear. 



His last important work was his contributions in the 

 Biologia Centrali Americana, in which he has described all 

 the species of the four important families, Cicindelidae, 

 Carabidae, Scarabaeidae, and Cerambycidae, which form a 

 prominent feature in this very important work. This alone 

 would satisfy the ambition of any Entomologist; but with 

 Bates there were no impossibilities. 



A short time before his death he sold his collection 01 

 Cerambvcidae to Mr. Charles Oberthur of Rennes. 



For a considerable time he had been engaged on a new 

 classification of the Carabidae on certain oral structures. 

 This was to have been his magnum opus, as he himself used 

 to say ; but death prevented its completion, which is greatly 

 to be regretted. 



Bates has also been a contributor to many other impor- 

 tant publications. His work (chiefly anonymous) in this 

 line was enormous at one time, and he was on the staff of 

 the Athenœum and other scientific reviews. He edited and 

 extended Stanford's book of geography and travels ; Central 



