Obituary — Richard Lydekker. 23£> 



scientific labours lie has left his mark on the Zoological and 

 Geological Collections in both Departments. 



Born in 1849, Richard was the eldest son of the late G. W. 

 Lydekker. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 1 869, where he 

 passed second in 1st class Natural Science Tripos in 1871, taking his 

 B.A. degree. He joined the staff of the Geological Survey of India 

 in 1874, and during his residence there as an officer of the Survey 

 spent much time in the field, and we have to thank him, amongst 

 other excellent pieces of geological work, for a detailed account of the 

 vast mountainous area comprised within the territories of Kashmir. 



He commenced his labours in the domain of Vertebrate Palaeontology, 

 by a study of the Siwalik fossils, and was able to contribute numerous 

 valuable additions to the classic work of Falconer and Cautley. Many 

 other Tertiary Vertebrata, from various parts of India and Burma, 

 have been examined and described by him. He has also given an 

 account of the Pleistocene fauna of the Karnul caves, and has 

 contributed to our knowledge of the Indian Mesozoic Reptilia. He 

 returned to England in 1882, and took up his residence permanently 

 at his family home, Harpenden Lodge, Harpenden, Herts. In the 

 same year Mr. Lydekker married Lucy Marianne, the eldest daughter 

 of the Rev. Canon 0. W. Davys, M.A., Rector of "Wheathampstead. 



Shortly after this he commended to study and catalogue the Fossil 

 Vertebrata in the Geological Department of the British Museum 

 (Natural History), and in 1884 completed vol. i of a series of five 

 volumes on The Fossil Mammalia in the British Museum, the fifth volume 

 being issued in 1887. Prom the Mammals he proceeded to the Possil 

 Reptilia and Amphibia, the catalogue of which was published in four 

 volumes between June, 1888, and April, 1890. The final volume, on 

 the Possil Birds, he brought out in 1891, thus earning for himself 

 with the Museum staff the good-natured sobriquet of " our lightning 

 cataloguer". Indeed, Mr. Lydekker at that time was undoubtedly 

 the most assiduous worker, as a scientific man, I think, that I ever 

 met, and his catalogues of the vast collections of fossil vertebrates in 

 the Museum are pioneer works of the greatest possible value to his 

 successors. 



"With Professor H. A. Nicholson, Lydekker undertook a third and 

 much enlarged edition of the former's well-known textbook of 

 Palaeontology, in two massive volumes, the second, on the Vertebrata, 

 being by him. With Sir "William Flower he collaborated in an 

 excellent volume on Mammals, Living and Extinct, which appeared 

 in 1891 (pp. 764). Later, on the recommendation of Plower, he 

 visited the National Museum of Argentina at Buenos Aires, and 

 there prepared and published, with the help of Dr. Moreno, the 

 Director, "Descriptions of South American Fossil Animals" (for 

 the Annals Museo La Plata). He assisted 'Sir William Flower in 

 the rearrangement of the entire mammalian collections (after 

 Dr. Giinther's retirement) in the Zoological Galleries of the British 

 Museum (Nat. Hist.), and continued similar work almost up to the time 

 of his death. In 1896 he produced a volume entitled The Geographical 

 History of Mammals, to which he attached especial importance, and 

 of which he always hoped to publish a revised edition. His work 



