OTTO FRANZ VON MOELLENDORFF. * 



By dr. W. KOBELT.* 



(Plate xi.) 



There are men who, born collectors, are predestined to be systematists, 

 who from earliest childhood pick up anything in nature which seems 

 remarkable, and try and give it the right place. Such a man was Dr. Otto 

 Franz von MoellendorfF, who on the 17th of August of this year was taken 

 away from science much too early by a malicious cancerous disease. Born 

 on the 24th of December in 1848, at Hoyerswerda, he had a leader from 

 the first years of his childhood in his father, who was a Commissioner of 

 Agriculture, and later President of the Natural History Society in Gorlitz. 

 The museum of that Society was the envious boy's dearest abode, and 

 when in 1866 he went to the University of Halle, it was quite natural that 

 he should take up the study of Natural Science. As circumstances did 

 not permit of his taking up a scientific career, he devoted his time to the 

 study of Chemistry, but his heart never left Zoology, and the desire to 

 visit foreign countries. Therefore he seized, in 1870, the chance by accept- 

 ing an offer from Dr. Blau, General Consul at Serajewo, to accompany 

 him as a teacher for his children to Bosnia. 



Bosnia, which was at that time still Turkish and uninvestigated, 

 found Moellendorff, besides his position, which was very suitable to his 

 teaching powers, and later his wife, who was an unwearied companion 

 in his work, a rich field for investigation. 



Already at that time he was a member of the German Malacological 

 Society, and corresponded with me, an intercourse which has continued 

 without a break for more than thirty years. In his " Fauna of Bosnia," 

 written in 1872, as a thesis for his degree of Doctor of Philosophy, the land 

 and fresh water molluscs constitute the chief part. Dr. Blau, knowing 

 the teacher's uncommon gifts, induced him to take up the Consulate's 

 career. The only prospects at that time lay in the extreme East, especially 

 in China, so the new doctor of Philosophy reported himself for China, 

 and in 1873 went as Interpreter to Peking. His great talent for langu- 

 ages, and his capability of adapting himself to foreign circumstances and 

 of understanding foreigners, made him advance quickly. We find him 



* Translated and communicated by Herr D. F. Heynemann, from the Nacbr. Deutsch. Malak, 

 Gesell., 1903, pp. 161—167. 



