LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. lOI 



nature was sorely abused by people of the begging-letter type : he 

 <;ou]d never resist an appeal to his purse, though that was far 

 from a well-filled one, and he was no less generous in bestowing 

 the fruits of scientific labours on those who asked him. 

 Take him for all in all, we shall not see his like again. 



[W. P. PyCKAlT.] 



Sir Charles William Stjuckland, eighth baronet, who died on 

 the last day of 1909, Dec. 3Ist, was a Fellow of the Linnean 

 Society from the loth February, 1877. He resided at Hildenley 

 Hall near Malton, on one of his country estates, for many years. 

 The Hall, although not a very large building, is a comfortable 

 residence, built in a well sheltered site at the base of a steep 

 wooded bank of limestone formation known as Hildenley Wood, 

 which is a I'elic of the ancient forest-land of Yorkshire and has 

 never been under cultivation, and is the home of some of the 

 rarest of our British native orchids and other rare kinds of 

 the wild flora of Britain, He was the original of " Martin the 

 Madman " in ' Tom Brown's Schooldays,' and was proud of 

 the fact. 



Sir Charles was a lover of Nature, and lived for many years a 

 quiet life. He built attached to the Hall a fine conservatory for 

 flowering plants, and also erected other glass structures for the 

 cultivation of exotic orchids, in which he was very successful, and 

 gave much attention to them, and no doubt enjoyed his quiet life 

 in the study of their growth and admiration of the great beauty 

 and variety of their flowers. 



He was a good botanist and had an extensive knowledge of the 

 flora of the British Islands ; he was also much interested in the 

 cultivation of hardy fruits, more especially of the apple, as he 

 considered it to be the most valuable fruit for general cultivation 

 in England. Some twenty years ago he represented a committee 

 of the Eoyal Horticultural Society, in the examination of the apples 

 growing in this district of Yorkshire, more particularly to get a 

 knowledge of the best kinds suitable to the locality. For two or 

 three seasons collections of these fruits were exhibited at Malton 

 and Whitby, local kinds were traced to their origin, and all 

 exhibits were named as far as possible and lists given of those 

 most suitable to the district. 



He was a large landowner in Yorkshire and generally considered 

 to be a generous landlord ; he let his farms at reasonable rents, and 

 very rarely changed his tenants. 



He was a tall, robust man of good appearance, was a careful liver, 

 and enjoyed the life of a country gentleman. He was fond of 

 hunting, and was a regular attendant at Lord Middleton's hunt 

 during the season up to within a few years of his death. In his 

 early life, whilst he was at Trinity College, Cambridge, he rowed 

 at Henley Eegatta in 1839, the first year the grand challenge cup 

 for Eights was ever rowed for, and was number 7 in the winning 

 crew, his cjUege eight. 



