EDWARD FORBES. 1 99 



Mollusca of Britain for the British Association. This 

 report Forbes laid, together with some other zoological 

 papers, before the meeting of the Association in the same 

 autumn ; and at the same meeting he founded the 

 celebrated dinner of the 'Red Lions.'* The whole of 

 1840 was spent in scientific work, a great part of which 

 was directed to the preparation and publication of his 

 well-known treatise on the sea-urchins, starfishes, and 

 other Echinoderms of Britain. 



In the meanwhile Forbes, though steadily gaining 

 reputation, had failed to obtain any fixed employment in 

 science. Lecturing had proved pecuniarily a failure, and 

 his scientific works did not bring him in any money. In 

 the early part of 1841, however, he was offered the post of 

 naturalist to the surveying-ship Beacon, which was about to 

 start on an expedition to the Levant This offer he 

 accepted, and after a fruitless attempt to obtain the natural 

 history chair in Aberdeen to which Macgillivray was 

 appointed he started for the East on board the Beacon, 

 in company with his friend and fellow-naturalist, William 

 Thompson. It is not necessary to enter into any details 

 as to the incidents of the expedition, which occupied two 

 years. Not only was Forbes enabled to make a number 

 of interesting and important observations as to the distri- 

 bution of marine animals in the Mediterranean, but he was 

 also able to spend some three months in a tour in Asia 



* The dinner of the ' Red Lion Club' was founded by Forbes in 1839, at the 

 meeting of the British Association at Birmingham. The name was derived from 

 the tavern at which the meeting of the club took place ; and the dinner became an 

 annual feature, which is still kept up at every British Association meeting. At the 

 dinner of the ' Red Lions,' the learned guests are supposed to drop all their science, 

 and tp give themselves up wholly to fun and merriment, approbation of the songs 

 or speeches being expressed by roars and growls. 



