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3n fIDemoriam. 



CHARLES CROSSLAND. 



It came as a painful surprise to many of us on the morning 

 of December nth to learn that still another of our few really 

 prominent Yorksthre naturalists had passed away ; Charles 

 Crossland died the previous Saturday, at the age of 72 years. 

 He was a ' worker ' in every sense of that word. He believed 

 that one was much more likely to ' rust out ' than to ' wear 

 out/ and there was no idle moment for Charles Crossland. 

 Though, as he described himself, he was a ' Knight of the 

 Cleaver,' and led a very strenuous business life, he yet did 

 far more to further the interests of Yorkshire natural history 

 than many of his fellows, albeit that he only commenced to 

 take an interest in the subject after he had reached his fortieth 

 birthday. As the Yorkshire Observer tells us, ' His daughter 

 entered some wild flower collecting competition and the 

 father's aid was invoked. For the first time realising that 

 wild flowers were of interest, he possessed himself of a good 

 book and friends of like mind, and with his ingrained thor- 

 oughness studied the botany of the flowering plants to the 

 depths of the science of the day. When he was about 45 

 years of age, he was persuaded, by the head of the Mycological 

 Department of Kew Gardens, Mr. George Massee, whose 

 acquaintance he had made on an excursion, to take up the 

 study of fungi, then much neglected. Mr. Crossland then 

 plunged into the task, and he and Mr. Massee laid the founda- 

 tions of a committee of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union for 

 the study which has made Yorkshire famous in botanical 

 circles all over the world.' 



' A great number of species previously unknown to Britain 

 or even unknown to science, were the result of Mr. Crossland's 

 researches, and his accumulated knowledge was recorded in 

 the big ' Fungus Flora of Yorkshire,' which he and Mr. Massee 

 produced, and in his contribution to the Halifax Flora, in 

 which he collaborated with Mr. W. B. Crump. He was nearly 

 50 years of age when, in consequence of the difficulty of pre- 

 serving his collections of fungi, he started to learn to draw 

 and paint that he might record his finds. He developed an 

 almost pre-Raphaelite minuteness and accuracy of touch 

 with the paint brush, which made his pictures of scientific 

 value ; as well as a fine sense of colour, which made them 

 pleasing works of art, and it is a testimony to their quality 

 that Sir Joseph Prain, the Director of Kew, declared himself 

 very glad to be permitted to purchase them for the national 

 collection. In the study of dialect — which he spoke to per- 

 fection — in the study of the local antiquities, and in many 

 other ways, he did excellent work. Honours fell upon him — 



Naturalist 



