Obituary — Alfred Nicholson Leeds. 479 



parts of each individual skeleton. Next they cleaned, washed, and 

 pieced together the broken fragments at home ; and they kept such 

 exact records that if any parts proved to be missing they were able 

 to return to the place of discovery and very often supply the 

 deficiencies. Some of the larger skeletons, in fact, were so widely 

 scattered that they could only be recovered bit by bit in the course 

 of weeks or months as the clay was worked; but the brothers' 

 records were so well kept that even in these difficult cases the missing- 

 parts of most remarkable specimens were eventually obtained. 



In 1887 Charles Leeds emigrated to New Zealand, where he died 

 in 1912 (see Geol. Mag., Dec. V, Vol. IX, p. 287). For the last 

 thirty years, therefore, Alfred Leeds worked alone, aided only in the 

 delicate processes of preparing specimens by his accomplished wife 

 and by one of his sons, E. Thurlow Leeds, now of the Ashmolean 

 Museum, Oxford. The scientific value of his results was acknowledged 

 by the Council of the Geological Society in 1893, when they awarded 

 to him part of the Lyell Fund. 



Although Mr. Alfred Leeds never ventured himself to write about 

 his discoveries, he soon became well versed in the osteology of the 

 Mesozoic reptiles and thoroughly appreciated most of the novelties 

 which he met with. He handed over all his material, with his own 

 observations, to various specialists who were in friendly communica- 

 tion with him. His collection was thus described by J. W. Hulke, 

 H. G. Seeley, R. Lydekker, C. "W. Andrews, and A. S. "Woodward, 

 and was also used for reference by 0. C. Marsh, G. Baur, and others. 

 Among Dinosaurs he obtained important remains of Omosaurus and 

 Stegosaurus, and especially fine portions of the skeleton of Cetiosaurus, 

 including a fragment of the slender whip-shaped end of the tail like that 

 of the American Diplodocus. He was the first to find sufficiently 

 extensive series of Pliosaurus to show the true nature of that gigantic 

 marine reptile. He also discovered two closely related new genera,, 

 which were named Peloneustes and Simolestes by Lydekker and 

 Andrews respectively. His wonderful collection of Plesiosaurians 

 and Ichthyosaurians enabled Seelej' to determine for the first time 

 the characters of the pectoral arch of these reptiles ; and he dis- 

 covered several growth-stages in the Plesiosaurians as described by 

 Andrews. Among Crocodilians he obtained a unique series of more 

 or less nearly complete skeletons of Metriorhynchus and Steneosaurus, 

 showing that the former differed from all other known Crocodilians 

 in its complete adaptation to aquatic life, lacking bony scutes, and 

 having the tip of the backbone turned downwards to support 

 a vertical tail-fin as in the Ichthyosaurians. From 1890 onwards all 

 the most important of these specimens were gradually acquired by 

 the British Museum, and an exhaustive Descriptive Catalogue of the 

 Marine Reptiles, prepared by Dr. Andrews (with illustrations), was 

 published officially in two volumes in 1910 and 1913. 



The fishes discovered by Mr. Leeds were no less important than 

 the reptiles, on account of the manner in which they displayed the 

 separate bones, especially of the head. They include several new 

 species described at different times by Dr. A. S. Woodward. The 

 most striking new genus and species is Leedsia prohlematica, the 



