644 Obituary. 



Dr. Henry Woodward, published in the ' Geological 

 Magazine/ Jan. 1905 ("Eminent living Geologists"). 



Blan ford's knowledge of zoology, combined with his 

 extensive acquaintance with the physical features and geology 

 of a large area in Europe and Asia, render all his writings of 

 peculiar value and interest. His work in the field had taken 

 him over the greater part of Peninsular India, Burma, the 

 Eastern Himalaya (Sikhim), as well as Scinde and, still 

 farther afield, Persia and Abyssinia ; thus physical geography 

 and the distribution of life in the past and in the present 

 enter largely into the papers contributed by him, and 

 suggest so much for others to work out. 



Yew men of his time were better qualified to deal with the 

 zoological subdivisions of the Oriental Region and fix their 

 bounds. His paper on " The Distribution of Vertebrate 

 Animals in India, Ceylon, and Burma"* is a monument 

 of careful and laborious research, indicating how certain 

 geological changes in elevation of the land with others of 

 temperature within the region have affected that distribution. 



With regard to the special work of this Union : — The birds 

 of the different zoological divisions arc well worked out, for 

 in ornithology Blanford did some excellent work, as some 

 30 of his papers testify, to which must be added the 

 descriptive catalogues to be found in his books on the 

 'Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia (1867-68)''; and 

 i Eastern Persia : Journeys of the Persian Boundary Com- 

 mission (1870-72)/ His knowledge of the birds of the 

 Eastern Himalaya was the outcome of a tour made in 

 Sikhim, accompanied by Captain H. J. Elwes, of which a 

 very interesting account is to be found in the pages of the 

 'Journal Asiatic Soc. of Bengal' (1871). On this trip, 

 the first scientific exploration of Sikhim since that of Sir 

 Joseph Hooker, Blanford collected largely, principally Birds 

 and the Land-Mollusca, while those of his colleague were 

 no less valuable. 



Since his retirement from the Indian Service in 1882, his 

 time may be said to have been devoted to the advancement 

 * Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. of London, 1901. 



