In Memoriam : Charles Cross! and. 25 



he was made a Fellow of the Linnean Society and President 

 of the Yorkshie Naturalists' Union, as well as local recognition — 

 but no honours spoilt his modest, self-effacing devotion to 

 his work, and his eagerness to find new recruits to carry it 

 on.' He was also President of the Yorkshire Dialect Society. 



He had passed his sixtieth milestone when he undertook 

 to prepare a ' Bibliography of Halifax/ in connection with 

 which he was communicating with the present writer up to 

 the week in which he died. For the past few years the Halifax 

 Antiquarian Society has printed instalments of this Biblio- 

 graphy in its Transactions ; the section of which, devoted to 

 Halifax Natural History, being probably of greatest interest 

 to him ; but he did all the sections well. His one grievance, 

 if grievance it can be called, was that in his later years, he 

 did not seem to be able to work with quite the speed and ability 

 of his younger — that is, middle-age — years. 



Quite apart from the volumes on the Fungus Flora of 

 Yorkshire, and the Halifax Flora, both of which are permanent 

 monuments to his industry, the pages of The Naturalist for 

 many years have given evidence of his work. Great and 

 valuable as his published writings — on a variety of subjects — ■ 

 are ; we are inclined to think that there was one side of his 

 character which has probably been of greater service to York- 

 shire science. That was the extraordinar}? patience and 

 pains he took to interest others in the study of botany in its 

 various branches. Very many Yorkshire naturalists, occupying 

 prominent positions in the Union to-day, owe their first 

 introduction to the study of nature to the thoughtfulness and 

 infectious enthusiasm of Charles Crossland. The present 

 writer owes him much in the way of information on a great 

 variety of subjects ; particularly if they were bearing upon 

 out-of-the-way matters. And he can also testify, as few 

 can, to the enormous amount of work he could accomplish. 

 When the Fungus Flora of Yorkshire, which he had the pleasure 

 of seeing through the press, was ready for the printers, Cross- 

 land found that it would save the printers trouble, save the 

 Union expense, and enable him to better judge the probable 

 cost, if his manuscript were re-written ; and, though his 

 original manuscript was remarkably clear and distinct, he 

 re-wrote the whole, giving not only the correct number of words, 

 but the correct number of ems to a line and the correct number 

 of lines to a page, so that the book eventually appeared word 

 for word, space for space, line for line and page for page, as 

 it was in manuscript. The gigantic nature of this task alone 

 can be better judged if any of our readers care to go to the 

 trouble of copying out even one of the 400 pages of the Fungus 

 Flora, most of which were occupied by the long scientific 

 names of Fungi. 



1917 Jan. 1. 



