WALTER EDWARD COLLINGE. 63 



malacology. At first unassisted, and in spite of rivalry, opposition, 

 active misrepresentation, and pecuniary loss, the young editor fought 

 his way into general favour. And now I can imagine him looking 

 back on those cloudy days with complacency, as he hands over to 

 his colleague the active superintendence of what is now the leading 

 English Journal and Review of its specific subject. 



Mr. Collinge is a born pioneer. Students of malacology were 

 accustomed in 1890 to inefficient and slighting service; and were 

 slow to believe that they need not submit themselves any longer to 

 such. The success of a manual devoted entirely to conchology 

 seemed very doubtful, but against prophecy, reasoning and prejudice, 

 the " Conchologist " was produced, and brought out regularly — each 

 number more useful and more valuable than the preceding. The 

 success of the paper was due primarily to the need for it among 

 workers in this field of science, but it was also largely due to the 

 unbounded enthusiasm and capacity for work on the part of its 

 editor. He might be said to have created the need for the journal 

 by publishing it; previously a notice in an odd corner of a magazine 

 of general science, or a long delayed and uncertain publication 

 elsewhere, satisfied the student of Conchology ; but the publication 

 of the " Conchologist " drew together and crystallised the work of 

 all, and many a new student of Zoology was encouraged by it to 

 give more than a mere passing notice to the Mollusca. 



Mr. Collinge was educated at the Yorkshire College, Leeds 

 (Victoria University). On the completion of his course he was 

 elected Assistant in Biology there under Professor L. C. Miall, 

 F.R.S., and it was during this period that the " Conchologist " was 

 first produced. In 1891 he became Demonstrator of Zoology in 

 St. Andrews University, under Professor W. C M'Intosh, M.D., 

 LL.D., F.R.S., where he gained the Woodall Fisheries Prize, and 

 turned his attention to the study of Teleostean Fishes. In the 

 Marine Laboratory of St. Andrews — where material is never 

 wanting — in the midst of his routine work of classifying and 

 enumerating large quantities of pelagic ova, he found time for 

 experiments on them in preparation for the microscope, and 

 perfected a method for preserving them. His articles on the 

 Mollusca in Chambers' Encyclopedia were written by him also 

 at this time; and the "Conchologist" of this year (1892) contains 

 amongst other articles from his pen a work entailing careful and 

 methodical criticism, viz., "A Review of the British Arionida" 

 In 1892 he was elected Demonstrator of Biology in Mason College, 

 Birmingham, and here under Professor T. W. Bridge, M.A., he has 

 been enabled to pursue the study of Fishes begun in St. Andrews. 

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