390 Obituary, 



on ornithology were very voluminous, and are essential to every student; 

 for, though his views are perhaps limited in some respects, compared to 

 those of more modern authorities, he made important use of the labours 

 of previous naturalists, and added many species to those formerly known. 

 His great works are: Index Ornithologicus" in 2 vols. 4to, 1790; and 

 A General History of Birds, in 10 vols. 4to, 1821 — 1824. He contributed 

 three papers to our Transactions : — "On the various Species of Sawfish," 

 in 1793; "Observations on the Spinning Limax," 1797; "Essay on the 

 Tracheae of Birds," 1797. It was a privilege of no ordinary kind, to one 

 who had not attained by several years even the moiety of the age of this 

 venerable man, to see him a few years ago, at our annivervary dinner, tri- 

 umphant in body and mind over the assaults of time ; and I remember 

 looking upon him with reverence : not exclusively that becoming respect 

 ever due from youth to age, whatever may be its intellectual characteristics ; 

 but that mingled feeling which partly arose from the impressive conscious- 

 ness that a life so protracted, and exhibiting so much calm assurance of 

 happiness, such serenity and cheerfulness of feeling, in a scene from which 

 so many of his early friends had gone for ever, bespoke a mind at peace 

 with itself and the world, and afforded a lesson of what true enjoyment 

 lies beyond even the Psalmist's limit to the age of man, when time appears 

 to have forgotten the good man's claim to a better state of existence ; and 

 it was impossible not to feel that his pursuits of natural history had, per- 

 haps, contributed largely to the complacency and the elasticity of his 

 almost patriarchal age. 



William Elford Leach, MJD., F.R.S, — Few men have ever devoted 

 themselves to zoology with greater zeal than Dr. Leach, or attained at an 

 early period of life a higher reputation, at home and abroad, as a pro- 

 found naturalist. He was one of the most laborious and successful, as 

 well as one of the most universal, cultivators of zoology which this country 

 has ever produced. His discoveries in the different classes of the Verte- 

 brata, especially birds, were extensive; but it was in entomology and 

 malacology that his labours have been most known, and his improvements 

 of the greatest importance. His knowledge of the Crustacea was superior 

 to that of any other naturalist of his time, and his arrangement the best, 

 until the work of Dr. Milne Edwards appeared, two years ago. After a 

 long suspension of his studies from ill health, during which, and up to the 

 period of his death, he was attended by the most devoted of sisters, he 

 returned to his favourite occupation with his habitual ardour ; and the 

 letters he wrote to his scientific friends in this country exhibited the same 

 devotion to the study of nature which distinguished the brighter years of 

 his life. His principal work, The Natural History of the Mollusca of Great 

 Britain, in the possession of his friend Mr. Bell, is not yet published. His 

 other works were: Malacostraca Podolphthalma Britannice, 4to, 1815 and 

 1816, not finished; Zoological Miscellany, 3 vols. 8vo, 1817; On the 

 Genera and Species of Proboscideans Insects, 8vo, 1817. He described the 

 animals taken by Cranch in the expedition of Capt. Tuckey to the Congo ; 

 and was the author of valuable articles in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, 

 Edinburgh Encyclopcedia, Philosophical Transactions, Zoological Journal, 

 Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles. Be- 

 tween 1810 and 1820, he contributed seven papers to the Transactions of 

 the Linncean Society: three on Insects; a general arrangement of 

 the Crustacea, Myriapoda, and Arachnides, a very laborious work ; two 

 descriptive of ten new genera of Bats ; one on three new species of Gla- 

 reola. He died in Italy, last year, of cholera. 



Joseph Sabine, Esq., F.R.S., $c. — Mr. Sabine, at the time of his death, 

 had been a Fellow of this Society for nearly forty years ; and, as one of 

 its friends who throughout his life devoted himself to the pursuit of 



