Deceased Felloivs : — Mr. Vigors, Mr. Rickman. 67 



sketched out in his HorcB Entomologies, in a more general way, 

 as applicable to the whole animal kingdom. He afterwards pub- 

 lished, in conjunction with Dr. Horsfield, another very valuable 

 memoir* on the Birds of Australia, grounded upon a rich collection 

 from that country, in the possession of the Linnean Society, which 

 they described and arranged according to their natural affinities. 

 He was likewise the principal editor, during several years, of the 

 " Zoological Journal," in which he wrote many memoirs, chiefly de- 

 voted to the further exposition of his views with respect to the 

 affinities of birds, but some of them descriptive of new or rare 

 Mammalia, or new forms of exotic insects or birds f. 



Mr. Vigors was a man of very considerable attainments as a 

 scholar as well as a naturalist:]:, and made a liberal use of an ample 

 private fortune in the promotion of those sciences which he culti- 

 vated : he was the representative in Parliament, for some years be- 

 fore his death, first of the city, and lastly of the county of Carlovv. 



Mr. Rickman was born in 1771, and educated at Westminster 

 School, from whence he proceeded as a student to Christ Church, 

 Oxford. Early in life he was recommended by Dean Jackson as 

 Secretary to Mr. Abbott, the Speaker of the House of Commons, 

 and was chosen to examine and digest the Parliamentary returns 

 under the first Population Act in 1800, a duty which he continued 

 to perform at the three succeeding decennial periods, and was pre- 

 paring to discharge it for the fifth time during the present year, 

 when he was attacked by the disease which terminated in his death. 

 He was appointed second Clerk Assistant to the House of Com- 

 mons in 1815, and subsequently Clerk Assistant, an office which 

 he continued to hold for the remainder of his life. 



The introductions to the " Population Returns," of which he was 

 the author, are remarkable for the very able analysis which they 

 contain of the general condition, changes and prospects of all classes 

 of the population §. 



Mr. Rickman was an excellent classical scholar, and was, in ad- 

 dition to many other attainments, extremely well acquainted with 

 many branches of engineering and practical mechanics. He was 

 the intimate friend, and after his death the executor, of the late 

 Mr. Telford, whose autobiography he published, with a preface and 

 an atlas of engravings descriptive of his principal works, which is 

 in every way worthy of the fame of that great engineer. 



• Linnean Transactions, vol. xv. 



[t Mr. Vigors's name has very frequently ajipeared in our pages, from 

 the time when he first became known as a naturalist to a very recent ])criod. 

 Abstracts of many papers by him occur in the Proceedings of the Zoologi- 

 cal Society, beginning in F'hil. Mag. and Annals, N. S., vol. ix. p. 54, and 

 continued through that and the present series. — Edit.] 



[J: Mr. Vigors v.-as the author of" An Inquiry into the Nature and Ex- 

 tent of the Poetic Licence," of which a second edition appeared in 1813, 

 Lond. 8vo. — En IT.] 



[§ A review of the Introductions to the Population Returns (from the pen, 

 we may now mention, of the late George Harvey, F.R.S.), was inserted in 

 L. & E. Phil. Mag. vol. i. p. 213.- Edit.] 



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