30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



large collection and made careful studies in all directions. But 

 although the book was advertised, failing health prevented him 

 from publishing it, and compelled him, a short time before his 

 death, to give up the directorship of the Botanic Grardens and the 

 secretaryship of the Botanical Society. The best sketch of his 

 general ideas on the classification of Eoses will be found in a 

 paper which lie contributed to the London Eose Conference of 

 1889, which is printed in the eleventh volume of the new series of 

 the ' Journal of the Eoyal Horticultural Society ' (page 217). His 

 final views on the delimitation and definition of the innumerable 

 European species — which should rank as species, which as mere 

 varieties, and which as hybrids — are now, we fear, irretrievably 

 lost. [J. Gr. Baker,] 



Charles Cobringtois" Prissick Hobkirk, a prominent Yorkshire 

 naturalist, was born on 13th January, 1837, at Huddersfield, the 

 only son of his father, David T. Hobkirk, who was engaged in the 

 woollen trade. He entered the West Riding Union Bank in 1852, 

 when 15 years of age, and rose to the position of Manager of the 

 Dewsbury Branch of that bank in January 1884 ; in 1892 he 

 quitted this position, but two years later he came back to Dews- 

 bury as manager for the Dewsbury branch of the Huddersfield 

 Banking Company ; in 1897 he retired from business-life, and 

 lived at first at Horsforth and finally at Ilkley, where he died on 

 29th July, 1902, after a long and painful illness. 



It was in his own time, in the intervals of business, that he 

 acquired his extensive knowledge of the natural history of his 

 native county. In 1859 he brought out a volume, ' Huddersfield : 

 its History and Natural History,' embodyitig in it a wealth of 

 information on the fauna and flora of the district ; it reached a 

 second and amplified edition in 1868. Erom 1864 to 1867 a series 

 of ' The Naturalist ' came out at Huddersfield, having papers on 

 British mosses from his pen ; in it he also described the forms of 

 Crataegus oxyacantlia, and translated a paper by Deseglise on the 

 Tomentosce section of Hosa. This venture ceased in the year last 

 mentioned, but was revived in 1875, Hobkirk being one of the 

 editors till 1884, when the Yorkshire Naturahsts' Union took over 

 the magazine. During part of this period he was President of the 

 Huddersfield Naturalists' Society, and actively pushed the interest 

 of more than one other local association. In the Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union Mr. Hobkirk was especially active and untiring 

 in the cause he had at heart, and he was its President in 1892. 



Although he thus showed his catholicity of taste, he was essen- 

 tially a bryologist. The volume by which he is best known, is his 

 book ' Synopsis of British Mosses,' which came out in 1873, 

 reaching a second edition in 1884 ; this was a most useful book to 

 the British student, for whom Wilson's ' Bryologia ' was unobtain- 

 able, and Dr. Braithwaite's 'Moss Flora' was not even begun. 

 He was responsible, with Henry Boswell, for the ' London Catalogue 

 of British Mosses,' published for the then active Botanical Locality 

 Eecord Club ; the second issue of this came out in 1881. 



