Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe (1 September 1813 – 20 June 1893) was an English

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

mainly interested in

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

Biography

He was born in

Penzance Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...

, Cornwall and trained at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Appointed surgeon in the

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

he served on Australian,

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

and

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

stations. He married a Miss Mary Glasson of

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

and settled at Trewhiddle near

St Austell St Austell (; kw, Sans Austel) is a town in Cornwall, England, south of Bodmin and west of the border with Devon. St Austell is one of the largest towns in Cornwall; at the 2011 census it had a population of 19,958. History St Austell wa ...

where his wife's property produced

china clay Kaolinite ( ) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is an important industrial mineral. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedra ...

. Widowed in 1851 he settled in London devoting himself to natural history and

entomology Entomology () is the science, scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such ...

in particular. The results of collecting trips to Europe, North Africa and the Lower Amazons were poor and Pascoe worked mainly on insects collected by others. His entomological papers listed and described species collected by

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural se ...

(in ''Longicornia Malayana''),

Robert Templeton Robert Templeton (12 December 1802 – 2 June 1892) was a naturalist, artist, and entomologist, and was born at Cranmore House, Belfast, Ireland. Life and work Robert Templeton was the son of John Templeton, and was educated in Belfast ...

and other assiduous collectors but not prolific writers on systematic entomology. He became a Fellow of the Entomological Society in 1854, was president from 1864–1865, a Member of the

Société Entomologique de France The Société entomologique de France, or French Entomological Society, is devoted to the study of insects. The society was founded in 1832 in Paris, France. The society was created by eighteen Parisian entomologists on January 31, 1832. The first ...

and belonged to the Belgian and

Stettin Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin language, Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital city, capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the Po ...

Societies. He was also a Fellow of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

(elected 1852) and was on the Council of the Ray Society. His 2,500

types Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Typ ...

are in the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

, London.

Evolution

Pascoe accepted the fact of

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

but was an opponent to

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...

. Pascoe's 1890 book ''The Darwinian Theory of the Origin of Species'' was an attack on natural selection. It received a lengthy review in the ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'' journal by

Raphael Meldola Raphael Meldola FRS (19 July 1849 – 16 November 1915) was a British chemist and entomologist. He was Professor of Organic Chemistry in the University of London, 1912–15. Life Born in Islington, London, he was descended from Raphael Me ...

who disagreed with Pascoe's criticisms but noted the work should be taken seriously as Pascoe was a respected systematic entomologist.

Works

*1858 On new genera and species of longicorn Coleoptera. Part III ''Trans. Entomol. Soc. London'', (2)4:236–266. *1859 On some new genera and species of longicorn Coleoptera. Part IV.''Trans.Entomol. Soc. London'', (2)5:12–61. *1860 Notices of new or little-known genera and species of Coleoptera. ''J.Entomol''., 1(1):36–64. *1860 Notices of new or little-known genera and species of Coleoptera, pt.II. ''J. Entomol''., 1(2):98–131. *1862 Notices of new or little-known genera and species of Coleoptera. ''J.Entomol''., 1:319–370. *1864–186
Longicornia Malayana
or a descriptive catalogue of the species of the three longicorn families Lamiidae, Cerambycidae and Prionidae collected by Mr. A. R. Wallace in the Malay Archipelago. ''Trans. Entomol. Soc. London'', (3)3:1-712. *1866 List of the Longicornia collected by the late Mr. P. Bouchard, at Santa Marta. ''Trans. Entomol. Soc. London'', 5(3):279–296. *1867 Diagnostic characters of some new genera and species of Prionidae.''Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist''., (3)19:410–413 *1875 Notes on Coleoptera, with descriptions of new genera and species. Part III. ''Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist''., (4)15:59–73. *1884 Notes on Natural Selection and the Origin of Species. Taylor & Francis. *1885 List of British Vertebrate Animals. Taylor & Francis. *1890 The Darwinian Theory of the Origin of Species. Gurney & Jackson.

References

*
Obituary in ''Natural science: a monthly review of scientific progress''
Volume 3, 1893: S. 159 * A. Boucard Obituary in ''The Humming Bird. A Quarterly, Artistic and Industrial Review''. Volume 5. Spring Vale, 1895: S. 12–13 {{DEFAULTSORT:Pascoe, Francis Polkinghorne Fellows of the Linnean Society of London 1813 births 1893 deaths English scientists English coleopterists Non-Darwinian evolution People from Penzance Fellows of the Royal Entomological Society