HENRY DOUBLEDAY, EPPING NATURALIST 323
Bevan Braithwaite, a Quaker solicitor, ministered at the service,
and names of others present included those of Miller-Christy,
Winslow, Pearson, Tweed, Sweet and Metcalf.
In 1867 a Joseph Smith compiled a descriptive catalogue of
Quaker books, and in a supplement of 1893 he mentioned that a
portrait in oils of Henry Doubleday hung in Bethnal Green
Museum, where his collections of insects were housed. Now after
his death in 1875, the Trustees deposited these collections on
loan for five years to the Bethnal Green Museum, which was then
a branch of the South Kensington Museum. The loan was sub-
sequently made permanent, and in 1915 the collections were
moved to South Kensington, where they can now be seen. The
painting just referred to was undoubtedly passed over with his
insects, and it has recently been rescued in a dirty and dusty
condition by my colleague Mr. A. C. Wheeler, who has kindly
prepared from it the photograph which I give here. The insects
in the Doubleday collection, which consists of 100 drawers of
English lepidoptera and 31 drawers of foreign ones, are beautifully
set. A friend of Doubleday's in a letter once wrote:
"Few of our English entomologists adopt the old fashion of
setting insects with card braces beneath the wings, but
Mr. Doubleday is one of them, and his specimens are
always distinguishable for the perfectly natural elegance
of their shape".
It might be thought from the photograph and from my
remarks that Doubleday was a rather shy man, difficult to ap-
juroach, and to some extent this was undoubtedly true; and it is
a fact that the last ten years of his life were spent almost in
seclusion. But Dunning, in writing his obituary notice in The
Entomologist in 1877 looked further than this, when he wrote:
"If he could have been induced to take his own List in
hand, and write down all he knew of the different species,
his observations would have made such a book as has not
yet been written. Gentle and quiet in manner, he moved
about the house with velvet tread, as noiselessly as one of
his own pet cats. Shy and retiring, even to a fault, he
seemed almost to dread to meet a stranger; but when once
the first interview was over, and the ice was broken, the
goodness of his heart shone forth, acquaintance warmed
into friendship, and no demand upon his friendship was
too great for him to comply with".
Countless examples of his generosity, particularly to fellow
entomologists could be given.
It was Edward Newman to whom Doubleday's death must
have been a grievous blow, who penned the Latin verse on a
memorial card, which he distributed in remembrance of his great
friend, and which also sums up so well the character of Henry
Doubleday. It read: