OBITUARY. 



PAUL FISCHER. 

 Born July 7, 1835. Died November 29, 1893. 



BY the death of Dr. Paul Fischer, malacologists have sufFered a 

 heavy loss, and one that will not be easily replaced. He was 

 for many years assistant naturalist to the chair of palaeontology in 

 the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, also a prominent member of the 

 Commission of Submarine Dredging, and a member of several 

 scientific societies. He does not, however, appear to have been a 

 very ambitious man ; and was quite unknown to many of his corres- 

 pondents except through his writings. 



As an author he was most prolific, and although he occasionally 

 wrote on some of the lower forms of vertebrates, the mollusca claimed 

 practically all his attention. And he was not a mere describer of 

 shells ; it is quite clear that whenever the animal of an interesting 

 genus fell into his hands, a contemporary journal invariably contained 

 something original from his pen concerning its anatomy. His 

 Observations anatomiques sur les moUusques peti conniis, a series of articles 

 written in the Journal de Conchyliologie in 1856-57 ; Ueber die Respiration 

 hei denmit Liingen versehenen Land-Gasteropoden ; Anatomie die genre Septi- 

 fer; Anatomie de deux Mollusques puhiiones terrestres appartenant aux genres 

 Xanthonyx et HyaUmax ; Note stir V anatomie des Cyr ones Amencaines, diud 

 many other memoirs of a like nature all testify to his thorough 

 acquaintance with the soft parts of his favourite group. Occasionally 

 we find him writing about bryozoa, hydrozoa, sponges, brachiopods, etc., 

 but his interest in them seems to have been merely a passing one, 

 kindled, perhaps, by the contents of his dredge. Sometimes geology 

 claimed his attention, though this was generally due to some collateral 

 influence. Thus he gives us a Note sur la geologie du Stidde Madagascar, 

 in 1868 ; Stir V existence du terrain tertiaire inferieur a Madagascar, etc. 

 Palaeontology does not seem to have had much attraction for him in 

 his minor writings, but his knowledge of the fossil mollusca was com. 

 prehensive enough, as we shall presently see. 



Altogether he has written more than 300 separate memoirs and 

 papers, and, in addition, 100 memoirs in conjunction with MM. H. 

 Crosse (his co-editor), Delesse, Tournoutir, Bernardi, and others, 

 published for the most part in the Journal de Conchyliologie. 



Among his more important works we may mention the descrip- 



