42 The bish Naturalist, February, 



ADMIRAL SIR F. L. M'CLINTOCK, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



We regret to record the death in London on November 17th of last. 

 5'ear of the distinguished Irishman Admiral Sir Francis Leopold 

 M'Clintock, who commanded the steam-yacht " Fox", that sailed to the 

 Arctic Seas in 1857 in search of the Franklin Expedition, and returned 

 in 1S59, bringing home authentic intelligence of the death of Sir John 

 Franklin at King William's Land on June nth. 1847. 



M'Clintock had also accompanied the three expeditions in 1848, 1850, 

 and 1852, that had been sent out by the British Government in search of 

 Sir John Franklin and his companions. In these three expeditions he 

 distinguished himself by some remarkable sledge journeys, in thelast and 

 longest of which a distance of no less than 1,400 statute miles was made 

 over the desolate wastes and frozen seas in the hitherto unexplored region 

 northward of Melville Island. The north-east shore of Prince Patrick's 

 Land, and the off- lying Polynia Islands were explored, the northern- 

 most of these islands lying almost under the 78th parallel of latitude 

 being named Ireland's Eye. 



M'Clintock appears to have taken a great interest in the Natural His- 

 tory of the regions traversed, and his paper " Reminiscences of Arctic 

 Ice-Travel in Search of Sir John Franklin and his Companions,"'' con- 

 tains interesting observations on the mammals, birds, fossils, &c., of 

 Griffith's Island, Melville Island, and neighbouring islands of Arctic 

 North America. 



During his residence in the Arctic Regions M'Clintock made valuable 

 collections of mammals, birds, shells, &c., which he presented to the 

 Natural History Museum in Dublin, the capital of his native country, 

 The following are some of the more important donations :— Skeletons 

 and skins of Musk Ox from Melville Island, skin of a very large Polar 

 Bear from Bellot Strait, skins of Eider Ducks and various Gulls. These 

 were mounted and have long been exhibited in the Museum. The first 

 authentic egg of the Ivory Gull (Zarz/j- ebnmens) that had been brought 

 to Europe was obtained by M'Clintock in June, 1853, at Prince Patrick's 

 Land (lat. 77-25 N , long. T16 W.), The &»% is preserved in the Dublin 

 Museum ; it was figured and the nidification of this gull described by 

 Carte.' 



An extensive and valuable collection of rocks and fossils was also 

 brought home by M'Clintock, and deposited in the Dublin Museum. 

 These were examined by the late Rev. S. Haughton.2 who described and 

 figured several new species of fossils, including a very fine Trilobite 

 {Croitms arctiacs), an interesting Liassic fossil {Ammonites APClinloc/ci), 

 Ort hoc eras Griffithi^ <s^c. 



From 1865 to 1868 M'Clintock was commodore of the Jamaica station. 

 While there he sent to the Museum collections of fishes and marine inver- 

 tebrates from Barbadoes and Jamaica, also two skins of the rare Petrel, 



^ Jotirnal Royal Dublin Society, vol. i. 1858. 



« lb., vols, i.-iii., 1858-62 ; and Appendix No. iv. to " the Voyage of 

 the ' Fox ' in the Arctic Seas," London, 1859. 



