Dr. L. Péringuey

Abstract

WE regret to announce the death of Dr. L. Peringuey, Director of the South African Museum, Cape Town, which occurred suddenly on February 20. Dr. Peringuey, who was French by birth, had been connected with the Museum since 1884, was Assistant Director under Mr. W. L. Sclater, and became Director in 1905. Throughout this long period he had worked untiringly for the advancement of science in South Africa and of the institution with which he was so closely connected. He was a man of varied scientific interests. His greatest work was the “Descriptive Catalogue of the South African Coleoptera.” During the past twenty years he laboured unceasingly at the problem offered by the prehistoric inhabitants of Southern Africa, and his volume on “The Stone Age in South Africa “remains the standard work on this branch of anthropological research. Coupled with this, Dr. Peringuey made a close study of the physical characteristics of the fast-vanishing groups of Hottentots and Bushmen; and under his direction the Museum accumulated its unique collection of plaster casts of specimens of those races, taken directly from the living subjects, and of skulls and skeletal remains.