Ohituary—John Francis Walher, M.A., ete. 383 
‘‘These ideas were expressed baldly and without specific demon- 
stration in his brief paper ‘On the Formation of a Species,’ published 
in the Grotoetcan Macazine for January, 1905 (Dee. V, Vol. II, 
pp. 15-17); but no one unacquainted with the worker can have 
enessed from it how huge was the store of exact observation that 
underlay this apparently sporadic expression of opinion. 
‘“‘Walker’s quict enthusiasm in a task that appealed to him was 
well exemplified by the manner in which he followed up the discovery 
of a fossiliferous band rich in Brachiopoda at the top of the Lower 
Greensand near Leighton Buzzard, which enlisted his attention five 
years ago. During two successive summers he spent many days on 
the spot, accumulating material and educating the werkpeople in the 
collection of specimens. Not only the quarrymen but also the children 
of the quarrymen became his willing helpers, and will long remember 
his kind and generous presence among them. His aim was to acquire 
the whole of the Brachiopoda that could be obtained from the limited 
nodular band that yielded the fossils, with the idea that it would give 
him the opportunity at last for amassing sufficient material to deal 
adequately with the question of ‘species’ and their relation to 
‘varieties.’ Some preliminary results of his work were published, 
not very willingly on his part, in our joint paper in the Quarterly 
Journal of the Geological Society for May, 1903 (vol. lix, pp. 284-265, 
pls. xvi-xvii), based on a collection that would have been already too 
large for the patience of most paleontologists, though the refrain 
to his specific descriptions in this paper is still ‘the want of 
further material.” His subsequent accumulation of the specimens 
went steadily on, until he could number them by hundreds or 
thousands, all laboriously cleaned, measured, and sorted, into their 
proper specific relationship, ready for the final work to be done. 
And, a short time ago, when I wrote to tell him that a recent visit to 
the section led me to think that the calcareous lenticles had been 
practically all removed in quarrying, so that he must not hope for 
a fuller series of the fossils, he replied cheerily that this could not be 
quite so, as he had just received a fresh parcel from the quarrymen 
that added to our knowledge. 
‘* But now, by the sad event of his short illness and untimely death, 
we are reminded once more that no single life is long enough for the 
completion of such work, and that fragmentary instalments alone are 
possible to us. For the task unfinished there is indeed im his case this 
slight consolation, that the concrete material which he so patiently 
collected and brought into order lies ready for the future student to 
take up the arrested work. So that not only by what he himself 
achieved, but also by the achievement that he has made possible for 
the workers who will follow him, the name of John Francis Walker 
will be remembered and honoured. 
‘“The loss to paleontological science is severe. But still more 
severe is the loss, to us who knew him, of an ever-genial, broad- 
minded, big-hearted friend.” 
Mr. Linsdall Richardson writes to the Editor:—‘‘To geologists 
like myself Mr. Walker was chiefly known as a keen Brachiopodist. 
The writings of the late Dr. Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., in the 
Paleeontographical Society’s volumes, show that he was in frequent 
