THE ,REV. ANDREW BLOXAM. 89 



the practice to ignore all the good that was done at Eugby before the time 

 of Dr. Ai'nold, but with gi'eat injustice. Dr. WooU, though not a 

 profound scholar, had great taste for literature, and encouraged it 

 wherever he saw an opportunity of doing so. There was a small but 

 well-selectel library, which was much used by the upper boys. But this 

 was not all. There were lectures on natural philosophy, which were 

 extren ely popular, and some of the boys were trying their hands at 

 making air-pumps and electrical machines; there was also a course of 

 comparative anatomy, which was extremely good, illustrated with well 

 prepared specimens, and to these more than one were indebted for their 

 first comprehensive views of physiology. The vicinity of the Lias pits at 

 Newbold, and the diluvial gravel at Lawford, gave great opx;)ortuuitie3 

 for collecting fossils, some of which, after sixty years, the wi-itcr has now 

 before him, and amongst the numerous collectoi'S the subject of this 

 memoir was not the least active. The specimens which he accumulated 

 were utilised by Dr. Buckland, the late Dean of Westminster, in his 

 " Reliquiae Diluvianae," and were ultimately presented to the Ashmolean 

 Museum at Oxford. 



In the autumn of 182J:, having been offered the situation of Naturalist 

 in the Blonde Frigate, (of which his eldest brother was Chaplain,) 

 commanded by Captain Lord Byron, which was dispatched by Govern- 

 ment to the Sandwich Islands to convey there the bodies of the King 

 and Queen who had died in this country, he at once accepted it. During 

 the voyage, which lasted eighteen months, he had the opportunity of 

 ' visiting several places both on the eastern and western coasts of South 

 America, and also numerous islands in the great Pacific Ocean, from 

 which he brought home a large collection of objects of Natural History, 

 amongst which were several, at that period, new to science, which, 

 on his return in the year 1826, were deposited in the British Museum. 

 He took Holy Orders a few months after his retu.rn, and for many years 

 was located in a part of Leicestershire extremely favourable for natural 

 research, where he had the pleasure of association with a very young 

 but intelligent Botanist, now the honoured Professor Churchill 

 Babington, who bade fair to be a shining light in the botanical world, but 

 whose studies have since been diverted to classical and archasological 

 literature, in which he has taken a very prominent position. 



Mr. Bloxam's researches were not confined to any one department of 

 Botany or Natural History. His communications on Conchologj^ 

 Ornithology, Pha9nogamic and Cryptogamic plants, to leading periodicals 

 were numerous; but, with the exception of his "Fasciculi of British 

 Brambles," which have been appreciated highly by those who regard the 

 greater part as mere forms of one, or perhaps, two species, as weU as by 

 those Botanists who look upon every form as distinct, his most useful 

 work was amongst the Fungi, in which his neighbomiiood was peculiarly 

 rich. Many of the most interesting species have been recorded in the 

 notices of British Fungi by Messrs. Berkeley and Broome in the " Annals 

 of Natural History," and a very curious genus has been dedicated to hira 

 by the same authors. In conjunction with Mr. Churchill Babington he 

 was enabled to furnish a very copious list of the Phaenogamous plants 



