LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDOK 141 



published elsewhere. His first paper to this Society was read 

 Di'C. 1857, his last only a fortnight before his death. 



He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Corresponding 

 Member of the American Philosophical Society and of the 

 Royal Academy of Turin. He was elected a Fellow of this 

 Society in 1857. 



Dr. Cobbold had been in delicate health for some time, aud 

 died suddenly on March 20th, 1886. 



Lieut. -Col. Alfred Augustus Davidsois' entered the Madras 

 Army on 1st April, 1854, and served with the 4th Madras Native 

 Infantry ; in 1862 he entered the Staff" Corps, aud was for some 

 time attached to the Nair Brigade in Travancore, in the mountains 

 of which State he acquired a taste for Botany. He had not good 

 health, and had to come to England on sick-leave several times ; 

 in 1882 he returned to India from sick-leave o£ 20 months, but 

 he only remained in India a vear and a hall, when he retired 

 from the Service, and died in June last, after attending a 

 rehearsal of the Haudel Festival at the Crystal Palace, as an 

 amateur yiolinist. He was elected Fellow, February 3, 1881. 



Thomas Davidson was born in Edinburgh, May 17, 1817, and 

 died at his residence in Brighton on October 14, 1885. He was 

 educated entirely on the continent, and showing at eleven years 

 of age a decided taste for natural science and for art, was sent to 

 Paris to prosecute his studies in those directions. He attended 

 the lectures at the Sorbonne, Jardiu des Plautes, Ecole des 

 Mines, and College de France ; and worked in the studios of 

 several of the most eminent French artists of that day. Having 

 attached himself specially to the study of geology and palaeon- 

 tology, he acquired, under the guidance of Prevost a practical 

 knovtledge of the stratigrapliy and fossils of the Paris IJasin. He 

 then returned to this country for a short time, matriculated at 

 Eduiburgh in 1835, and had the opportunity of assisting Mr. R. 

 Cunningham in his geological survey of tlie Lothians. In 1836 

 he revisited the continent, and made a personal examination of 

 the geological features of a considerable portion of France, Bel- 

 gium, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. • 



In the course of this tour, he became acquainted with the 

 eminent geologist Von Buch, by whom he was induced to take 

 up the special study of the Brachiopoda — a group at that time 

 comparatively little known. From that year (1837) up to the 

 time of his death, he devoted himself heart and soul to the work 

 then undertaken, with a loyalty, an energy, and a devotion rarely 

 equalled. His noble series of monograpiis on the Fossil Bracliio- 

 poda published by the Palseontographical Society, — occupying 

 five large quarto volumes, containing nearly 3000 pages of text, 

 and 250 plates — are a testimony to his industry aud patient 

 research. They are also a memorial of his great artistic talent, 

 for the whole of the magnificent illustrations were drawn on stone 

 by his own hand. 



