May, 191 5. 



The Irish Naiuralist. 



11 



THOMAS ROBINSON HEWITT. 



The volumes of this Magazine contain records of the hfc- 

 stories of man}^ veteran Irish naturahsts and of not a few 

 who have been taken from tlie midst of their useful 

 activities while in middle life. In Thomas R. Hewitt, who 

 died in Dublin on the 23rd March, 1915, at the early age of 

 twenty-seven years, Ireland has lost a young zoologist of 

 exceptional promise, who would assuredly have risen to 

 very high distinction had his life been spared. Yet in the 

 brief time allotted to him he has achieved enough to ensure 

 grateful remembrance. 



Hewitt was born near Crossgar, Co. Down, on the 7th 

 September, 1887. From boyhood in the local school and 

 on his father's farm, he passed to two sets of winter 

 classes, as organized by the Department of Agriculture. 

 Thence he gained an agricultural scholarship at the Royal 

 College of Science, which he entered in October, 1909. 

 Passing through the three-years' course with credit, and 

 taking several prizes, he obtained the i\ssociateship of the 

 College as well as the National Diploma in Agriculture in 

 1912. The opportunity of a research assistantship in 

 agricultural zoology then came to him, the appointment 

 being intended especially to facilitate investigation into 

 the life-history of ox-warble-flies, which had been in 

 progress since 1904. Into this work Hewitt threw himself 

 with enthusiasm and soon showed a manifold aptitude 

 for the research, which involved careful studies of insect 

 anatomy as well as extended experiments and observations 

 on cattle, the winters being spent in the College laboratory, 

 and the summers at the Department's Ballyhaise station 

 in Co. Cavan. Hewitt rapidty developed admirable skill 

 in minute dissection and remarkable powers as a draughts- 

 man. The beautiful plates illustrating our joint paper on 

 the Reproductive Organs and newly -hatched Larva of the 

 Warble Fly^ were reproduced directly from his pen-and-ink 



* Sn. Proc. R. Dublin Soc, vol. xiv., no. 19. I9I4. 



