OBITUARY. 283 



illustrated. He wrote the articles " Conchology" and " Entomology" in Rees's 

 : Cyclopadia. Though extremely useful at the time when they were published, 

 his works perhaps exhibit more of the splendour of art than of any enlarged 

 views of science. He added some species to the previously existing knowledge 

 of detailed Zoology ; and it is painful to reflect that one who had laboured so 

 much in the cause of science should not have escaped the penury that too often 

 waits on age. 



Henry Adolph Schradeb, professor of Botany at Gottingen, author of Spici- 

 legium Flora Germanicse, 1794, and Flora Germanica, vol. 1st, 1806, and 

 various essays on exotic plants. His Flora Germanica has a high reputation, 

 but it only extends through the class Triandria. There is an elaborate and very 

 useful list of the botanical writers of Germany at the commencement. The 

 Flora Britannica of Smith is spoken of in Germany as inferior only to the 

 Flora Germanica of Schrader.* 



John Latham, M.D. — Although we have already published a brief account 

 of our venerable and amiable friend at p. 56 of the present volume, we feel 

 assured the following further particulars, from the pen of Dr. Boot, will be 

 perused with interest. He was one of the original members of the Lin- 

 nean Society, and for nearly half a century took the liveliest pleasure in 

 its prosperity and advancement. This venerable man devoted himself to 

 his favourite science of Ornithology, with undiminished interest, to the close 

 of his long life, which was extended to his ninety-seventh year. His 

 writings on Ornithology were very voluminous, and are essential to every 

 student ; for though his views are perhaps limited in some respects, com- 

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

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

 was a privilege of no ordinary kind, to one who had not attained by several 

 years even the moiety of the age of Dr. Latham, to see him a few years ago, at 

 our anniversary dinner, triumphant in body and mind over the assaults of time ; 

 and I remember looking upon him with reverence ; not exclusively that becom- 

 ing respect ever due from youth to age, whatever may be its intellectual charac- 

 teristics ; but that mingled feeling which partly arose from the impressive con- 

 sciousness 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 



* We should be glad if any correspondent could favour us with the date of the demise of Dono- 

 van and Schradek. — Ed. Nat. 



No. 11, Vol. II. 2p 



