44 I'KOCEEDIXGS OF THE 



ill oo-oporatioii with Jjowe aiul Wolhistoii. On relurning to 

 EdiiibiiiM^li, ho devoted himself chiefly to his favourite sciences of 

 geolouly and conchnlogv ; and in ISTG, at the request of his 

 friend, Sir Charles Wyvdle Thomson, he undertook to work out all 

 the mollusca which had just been brought back by H.M.S. ' Chal- 

 lenger' — with the excei)tion of the Cephalopoda and Ptercpoda. 



In 1878, however, the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank 

 compelled him to give up his well-earned leisure and to return to 

 work ; and he accepted the call of the Free Church congregation 

 at Cardross, Dumbartonshire, where he remained till his retire- 

 ment from active work in LSiJS. 



llesidence in a country district of course deprived him of easy 

 access to books and collections, and he therefore returned all tho 

 material he was working at to the ' Challenger' oflice ; but Sir C. 

 AVyville Thomson's urgent representations induced him to resume 

 his stutlies in part, though he limited his investigations to the 

 Gastropoda Hiid Scaphopoda — about 1300 recognizable species 

 in all. 



The results of his labours appeared in the fifteenth volume of 

 the 'Challenger' series in 1886, and, as an illustration of the 

 thoroughness of his methods, it may be mentioned that he worked 

 at the Museums of Paris, Berne, and Geneva, as well as at the 

 ]iritish Museum, before the Natural History portion was removed 

 to South Kensington. 



In 1891 he was President of the Conchological Society, and in 

 1892 the University of Edinburgh conferred upon him the 

 degree of LL.D. 



Of the nature of Dr. Watson's work there is only one opinion. 

 ]lis descriptions, at times almost too detailed, are "excellent, and 

 he spared himself no trouble in their preparation. 



For nearly twenty years he spent part of the summer in 

 Switzerland, especially in the Rhone Valley, and his favourite 

 haunt was Bel Alp, where he did much climbing and botanising, 

 and fraternised with such men as Bishop EUicot, Edward 

 AVhymper, and Prof. Tyndall. 



[E. A. Smith, I.S.O., and J. E. Le B. Tomlix.] 



[A list of nineteen works, nearly all on Mollusca, is given in .Tourii. of 

 Conch, vol. xiii. pp. 139-40. Excludiuj,' the 'Challenger' luunograph, 

 tlie most important of these is the series ou tho ' Challenger' Mollusca 

 in tho Jouru. Linn. Sue. (Zool.) xiv.-xvii. I878-83.J 



