CROTCH, William Duppa

Younger brother of George Robert (see above). An obituary notice in EMM., 39, 1903, p.256, states: 'we think he studied for the medical profession, but, finding it distasteful, did not qualify'. It is certain that he accompanied his brother on entomological excursions from an early date and that in his youth he shared with him an almost equal enthusiasm. He published his first entomological article (on Lepidoptera) in Zoo., 16, 1858, p.6213, and his first note on Coleoptera in EWI., 8, 1860, p.54. He also published on the Hemiptera at this time. In the Spring of 1862 Crotch visited the Canary Islands to collect Coleoptera and T.V.Wollaston, Catalogue of the Coleopterous Insects of the Canaries in the Collection of the British Museum, 1864, records that he captured forty four new species there. Wollaston also makes frequent reference to Crotch's 'accurate and indefatigable researches'. Two years later he repeated the visit in the company of his brother when they added a further seventy seven species to the earlier lists. The obituary referred to above mentions that Crotch married a Swedish girl and moved to Scandinavia 'apparently doing very little entomologically, but occupying himself with an exhaustive study of the lemming and its migrations, the results of which were published'. Chalmers-Hunt (1976) records that Crotch's collections were sold by Stevens on 19 June 1900. (MD 4/02)