George Robert Crotch

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George Robert Crotch (1842 - 1874) was a British entomologist.

Crotch became interested in insects, especially Coleoptera, while an undergraduate at Cambridge University. He worked at the University Library, Cambridge. He collected insects in Europe and in late 1872 he went to the United States to collect insects on the west coast. In 1873 he accepted a position as assistant at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology with Hermann August Hagen. He made collections of Coleoptera in California , Vancouver's Island and Oregon but soon afterwards he died of tuberculosis.

Crotch was the author of a number of books, including Checklist of the Coleoptera of America (1873) and A revision of the Coleopterous family Coccinellidae (1874). His insect collections were left to the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology.

[edit] References

Smart, J. and Wager, B. George Robert Crotch, 1842–1874: a bibliography with a biographical note. JSBNH 8 (3): 244–248 (November 1977).

[edit] Quote

"I am greatly indebted to Mr G. R. Crotch for having sent me numerous prepared specimens of various beetles belonging to these three families [Crioceridae, Chrysomelidae, Tenebrionidae] and others, as well as for valuable information of all kinds . . . I am also much indebted to Mr. E. W. Janson for information and specimens . . . In Carabidae I have examined Elaphrus uliginosus and Blethisa multipunctata, sent to me by Mr Crotch.Charles Darwin.