OBITUARY. 



BRIAN HOUGHTON HODGSON. 



Born 1800. Died May 23, 1894. 



MORE than a third of a century has passed away and a new 

 generation has arisen since the last contribution to Natural 

 History from Brian Hodgson's pen was originally published, and it is 

 more than half a century since he ceased to take an active part, as an 

 official, in the work of the Indian Government. To appreciate the 

 services that he rendered to Natural Science in the first half of the 

 present century, it is necessary to recall the change, both in our 

 knowledge of India and in our means of communication with it, that 

 has taken place in the interval. One instance will suffice. At the 

 time when Mr. Hodgson investigated the religions and languages, 

 and described the mammals and birds of Nepal, so little was known 

 of the Himalayas that their peaks, which exceed by many thousands 

 of feet all other mountains on the earth, were supposed to be inferior 

 in elevation to those of the Andes. 



A few words will be sufficient for a sketch of Mr. Hodgson's 

 career. He was the son of a banker, and was born at Macclesfield ; 

 he entered Haileybury in 181 6, and landed in Calcutta to join the 

 Indian Civil Service in 1818. In 1820 he was appointed secretary to 

 the Resident at Katmandu, in Nepal ; he became Resident in 1831, 

 and occupied the post till 1843, when he was replaced by an even 

 better known Indian official, afterwards Sir Henry Lawrence. Mr. 

 Hodgson resigned the Indian service, and for a time returned to 

 Europe, but in 1845 he took up his residence at Darjiling, a hill station 

 that had only been occupied for about five years, and he remained 

 there, partly engaged in studying the birds and mammals, but chiefly 

 occupied with linguistic enquiries, until he finally left India in 1858. 

 After his return to England he entirely relinquished the scientific 

 pursuits on which his widespread reputation was founded. 



There is no richer mammal and bird fauna in the world than 

 that of the Eastern Himalayas, and if, when Mr. Hodgson arrived in 

 Nepal, he entered on a zoological Eldorado, he made superb use of 

 the opportunities he enjoyed. For many years the Asiatic Researches 

 a.nd the Journal of the Asiatic Society were filled with descriptions of 

 new birds and new mammals from his fertile pen, and many of his 

 communications appeared in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 



