LINNEA2T SOCIETY OF LONDON. 1 7 



of the Neotropical region, published in 1878 and 1879 ; but all 

 are valuable and remarkable for their conciseness and lucidity ot 

 exposition. In 1879 Messrs. Godmau and Salvin commenced the 

 publication of the ' Biologia Centrali- Americana,' in which the 

 division Mammalia was written by Mr. Alston, who, in spite of 

 failing health, managed to complete that section before he died. 

 Although still young, his scientific attainments and social quali- 

 fications were by this time generally acknowledged ; and in 1880 

 his elevation to a post on the Council of the Zoological Society, 

 on various Committees of which he had long served, was followed 

 by his election as Zoological Secretary here. But the seeds of 

 early disease, which it was hoped he had outgrown, still lurked 

 in his constitution ; and, working to within three weeks of his 

 death, he was carried ofi" by acute phthisis on the 7th March, 

 1881, at the early age of 35. 



Only those who have watched his career can estimate tlie loss 

 which science has sustained by his untimely removal. In private 

 life few men have been more universally beloved ; for to great 

 force of character and to a frank outspokenness when he deemed 

 that the occasion required it, he united an amiability of manner 

 and a conciliatory mode of expression which precluded the possi- 

 bility of giving offence. The lot of any man may justly be envied 

 whose loss is so sincerely mourned. 



John Blackwall was born nt Crumpsall Old Hall, near Man- 

 chester, on 20th January, 1789, and died on the 11th inst., in his 

 ninety-second year. About 1820 he began to devote his atten- 

 tion to the true spiders {Araneidea) ; and thenceforward his 

 ardour never flagged, despite failing sight and other accompani- 

 ments of old age. His work was prosecuted almost entirely 

 without help from other observers ; from time to time he issued 

 six papers in the ' Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,' and a 

 similar number in our own 'Transactions,' between 1833 and 

 1855. He also contributed fifteen articles in the 'Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History,' from 1851 to 1857, comprising a 

 catalogue of all the then known British spiders. The ' Journal 

 of the Linnean Society ' has three papers by him in 1864 and 

 1870; but the work by which his reputation will be best main- 

 tained is his ' History of the Spiders of Grreat Britain and Ireland,' 

 published by the Eay Society in 1861-64 in one volume. [A full 

 obituary notice from the pen of the Eev. O. P. Cambridge will 

 be found in ' The Entomologist ' (1881), vol. xiv. pp. 115-150.] 



John Gould was born in September 1801, at Lyme, in Dorset- 

 shire ; but his father moved afterwards to Guildford, in Surrey, 

 and subsequently was appointed one of the foremen in the Koyal 

 Gardens at Windsor. Here the boy had good opportunity of 

 studying British birds in the field ; and his early .specimens ob- 

 tained about this time, when he was little more than fourteen 

 years of age, show great skill in preparation. He came to London 

 in 1827, then quitted his career as gardener, and received the 

 appointment of Taxidermist to the Zoological Society's Museum. 



LINN. sue. PBOCEEDINGS. — SESSIONS 1880-82. 



