LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



THE LATE Mr. F. V. McCONNELL 



Silt,- — To a large majority of the members to-day the name of 

 Mr. F. V. McConnell is no doubt an unfamiliar one, but I should wish to 

 point out that for many year?, soon after my being appointed Curator of 

 the Museum in 188G, up to 1898, there was no one more interested in or 

 more closely identified with the development of that institution than the 

 keen Naturalist who has just passed away. 



During those years collecting expeditions, one after another, from 

 the Barima to the Corentyne, were undertaken by me largely at Mr. 

 McConnell's expense, the collections of birds alone being shared, and all 

 else coming to the Museum. He, from his keen interest, was always 

 present ; and though privation often was a necessary adjunct of such 

 trips, he never allowed any such possibility to divert him from the 

 accomplishment of the object aimed at. As a memento of smaller trips, 

 the specimen of the electric eel, which is far and away a record of its 

 kind, being 7ft. 3in. in length, obtained in the North West District, still 

 remains in evidence in the Museum. 



Of the longer expeditions, such as the savannah and first Eoraima 

 trip of 1894 and the second Roraima trip of 1898, the first jointly with 

 the Museum, and the second entirely at his own expense, the Museum 

 shows to-day a large number of typical specimens, which have been 

 obtained under no other collaboration. Much of the collections thus 

 obtained served the purpose of exchanges for other desirable outside 

 material ; and material, such as the constituent barks of the urali poison, 

 was of more than passing physiological interest in many centres of 

 research. 



The typical biological collections on the summit and about Mount 

 Roraima, from their special interest and wide significance, were handed 

 on to the Royal collections. Kew, and the British Museum, where, with 

 the aid of many continental experts, the results were summarised and 

 issued as special reports of the Linnean Society in its transactions in 

 1901 — reports which, in conjunction with the earlier results of im 

 Thurn's expedition, are records in Tropical Biology of the higher 

 altitudes. 



Beyond this, the Society evidences to-day a further illustration 0' 

 Mr. McConnell's munificence in the quite unique series of enlarged 

 photographs, taken by himself, of views illustrating the physical features 

 and the native peoples of British Guiana, mainly of the hinterland, which 

 1 hope will yet furnish a part memorial of his name. 



From a local point of view I could mention instance upon instance 

 of his furtherance of the knowledge of the biology of the colony, as, 

 for example, the opportunity for research on the migratory birds of 

 the colony contributed by me to " Tiui'chri '' ; and later on the micro- 



