Mr. E. W. Ferguson

Abstract

SCIENTIFIC circles in Australia have suffered a great loss in the death at Wahroonga, New South Wales, on July 18 last, of Dr. Eustace Ferguson. Eustace William Ferguson was born at Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1884, the son of the distinguished divine, Rev. John Ferguson of St. Stephen's, Sydney, and when an undergraduate of the University of Sydney showed a passion for natural history. He was encouraged to collect coleoptera by Mr. George Masters, Curator of the Macleay Museum, in whose room I first made his acquaintance. Graduating in 1908 with honours in medicine, he showed an unusual knowledge of that side of his work which dealt with zoology and microbiology. He joined the Linnean Society of New South Wales in 1909 and contributed his first entomological paper on the Phalidurinæ, or ground weevils of Australia, in which group he became the authority; in all he published fourteen papers on the group, papers that were distinguished by their lucidity and judgment.