Ohihiary — William Vicar y, F.G.S. 143 



ABSENCE OF LEPUS EUROP^US, PALLAS, FROM BRITISH 

 PLEISTOCEXE DEPOSITS. 



Sir, — Having had an opportunity of examining the remains of 

 Hares from the Pleistocene of this country, preserved in the Natural 

 History Museum, I find that all the specimens which are deter- 

 minable, including the originals of Buckland's and Owen's figured 

 specimens, belong to the Mountain Hare [Lepus timidus, L.), there 

 being no evidence of the common Hare {Lepus europceus, Pallas). 

 In consequence, I am inclined to assume that the latter has been 

 introduced into this country by man, possibly as late as the Eoman 

 period. I ask you kindly to give publicity to this letter in the hope 

 that if there is conclusive evidence of Pleistocene remains of the 

 Lepus eiiropcBus in some public or private collection it may be 

 forthcoming. C. I. Forsyth Major. 



OBITTJJ^IR^-. 



WILLIAM VICARY, F.G.S. 



BoBN July 26, 1811. Died October 22, 1903. 



William Vicary was born in 1811 at Newton Abbot in Devonshire. 

 Early in life he removed to North Tawton, where he started business 

 as a tanner, and with so much success that he retired in 1856 and 

 removed to Exeter, where he resided for the remainder of his long 

 life. He was one of the founders of the Devonshire Association, 

 ■established in 1862, and an original contributor to Symons' 

 " British Rainfall," the first volume of which, for the year 1860, 

 was published in 1861. He was elected a Fellow of the Geological 

 ^Society of London in 1864. Mr. Vicary was an enthusiastic 

 collector of fossils, and his museum was especially rich in the 

 fossils from the Upper Greensand of the Haldon and Blackdown 

 Hills. He is best known to geologists by his discovery of fossils 

 in the quartzite ' popples ' of the Triassic pebble-bed of Budleigh 

 Salterton. The fossils were described and figured by Salter in 

 a joint paper brought before the Geological Society, while Salter 

 dealt more generally with the subject in the first Original Article 

 published in the Geological Magazine (July, 1864). The species, 

 all new to British geology, were identified with forms found in the 

 ■older rocks of Normandy, some belonging to the Gres Armoricain 

 (Arenig group). Mr. Vicary 's valuable collection, embracing a large 

 number of type-specimens, was bequeathed by him to the Natural 

 History Museum, Cromwell Road. 



1864. " On the Pebble-bed of Budleigh Saltertou" ; with a Note ou the Fossils 



by J. "W. Salter : Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xx, p. 283. 

 186.5. " On the Feldspathic Traps of Devonshire" : Trans. Devon Assoc, vol. i, 



p. 43. 

 ■1867. " On the Source of the Murchisonite Pebbles and Boulders in the Triassic 



Conglomerates of Devonshire " : Trans. Devon Assoc, vol. ii, p. 200. 

 J872. "■ Fossil Coral allied to Merulina (Ehrenberg), from the Upper Greensand of 



Haldon Hill, near Exeter" : Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. iv, vol. ix, 



p. 84. . 



