Biographical dictionary
The Biographical Dictionary of British Coleopterists was compiled by the late Michael Darby. The Dictionary can be accessed below, and see also the additional information provide by Michael:
The filter boxes below can be used to find individual entries or groups of entries in the table. You can filter by surname (enter a single letter to see all names beginning with that letter, or enter the first part of a particular surname), or by any part of the full name, or you can filter the main biographical text. You can use the filters in combination, e.g. to search for both a name and some biography text at the same time. Don't forget to click on the Apply button to make your filter work. To remove your filter, delete the text you typed in and then click "Apply" again.
| Name | Dates | Biography | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DUFFY, Evelyn A. J. | d. c.1986 | Best known for the important series of Monographs on the Immature Stages of Timber Beetles which he wrote while on the staff of the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology. These volumes comprised: British and Imported, 1953; American, 1957; African, 1957; Supplement to African, 1980; Neotropical, 1960; Australian, 1963; and Oriental, 1968. Before devoting the major part of his time to this work Duffy wrote a number of articles on the British fauna including ‘The Coleopterous fauna of the Hants. Surrey border’, EMM., 81, 1945, pp.169-179; ‘Notes on the British species of Pyrochroa with a key to their first stage larvae’, ibid., 82, 1946, pp.92-93; and ‘Records of Coleopterous larvae from Surrey with a note on host-plants’, ibid., pp.270-273. He also wrote the RES Handbooks on Cerambycidae, 1952, and Scolytidae and Platypodiae, 1953. Earlier he had written a leaflet for the AES on making a garden pond (1945). Duffy made numerous gifts to the NHM from 1939 of larvae in particular collected both by himself and others. Two of the largest gifts were of 1015 larvae collected in Surrey and Hants in 1944-49 (1950.148) and of 1215 larvae and pupae from England generally (1951.192). Other specimens collected by him are to be found in the Kauffmann Collection at Manchester and in the general collection at Birmingham. I have not been able to trace any obituary notice. (MD 9/02) | |
| DUGGAN, Harry L. | Sold 6 Coleoptera to the NHM in 1894 including 4 specimens of Goliathus giganteus from the Mouth of the Loango, West Africa (94.104 and 94.136). (MD 9/02) | ||
| DUMBRELL, Roger D. | Lived at Milton Street, Susex. Dumbrell collected in the period 1960-1975, sometimes in company with Peter Hodge and Richard Jones, and built up a good collection of Sussex material supported with collecting diaries. (I am grateful to Peter Hodge for this information). (MD 9/02) | ||
| DUN, G.S. | Worked for the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology in the 1950s. Gave 5 weevils which he had collected in New Guinea to the NHM in 1951 (1951.139) and 10 Coleoptera from Keravat in the same year (1951.493). (MD 9/02) | ||
| DUNBAR, Mrs J.L.Duff | Made three gifts of Coleoptera to the NHM between 1880-85: 3 from Scotland (80.38); 27 Gyrinus minutus from Dhu Lock, Wick (81.18); and 1 from the Island of Elephantina (85.31). The last is recorded as 'collected by herself'. She lived at Ackersgill Tower, Wick, Scotland. (MD 9/02) | ||
| DUNCAN, J.N. | Gave 94 Coleoptera which he had collected in China to the NHM in four batches between 1932-34 (1932.405, 15 specimens; 1933.125, 5 specimens; 1934.278, 35 specimens; 1934.454, 38 specimens) (MD 9/02) | ||
| DUNCAN, James | Very little biographical information about Duncan appears to have been published and no obituary notices are recorded. He is chiefly remembered for the entomological volumes he wrote for W. Jardine's Naturalists Library including the volume on Beetles, first published in 1835, and subsequently re-issued under the title Beetles British and Foreign containing a full description of the more important varieties (no date but probably 1880s). Apart from these works the only other publications on Coleoptera by him to which I have seen references are: ‘Catalogue of the Coleopterous insects found in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh’, in Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, 6, 1832, pp.443-538, and Entomologia Edinensis, 1834, written with James Wilson. The former increased the Edinburgh list published by Charles Stewart in 1809, which included a little over 100 species, to 545, and the latter increased this further to 640. In the Introduction to the Entomologia Edinensis, Duncan and Wilson state that they had recorded from Scotland, as opposed to the Edinburgh district, nearly one half of the 3298 species listed by Stevens in his Systematic Catalogue, 1829. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, that when Andrew Murray came to write his Catalogue of the Coleoptera of Scotland, 1853, he makes no mention at all of Duncan in an extensive list of acknowledgments. (MD 9/02) | ||
| DUNCAN, John P. | Listed in the Ent.Ann., 1856, as interested in British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. His address is given as Monkton, Ayrshire. (MD 9/02) | ||
| DUNCAN, Robert Dick | Published a ‘Note on the occurrence of the glow worm in Scotland’ in Zool., 2, 1844, p.612. (MD 9/02) | ||
| DUNLOP, A.A. | Listed in the Ent.Ann., 1860, as interested in British and East Indian insects of all orders. His address is given as 95 Lower Bagot Street, Dublin. (MD 9/02) |