212 MELVH.L; BRITISH PIONEERS IN CONCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 



of this work, the Stainforth collection was sold, and scattered 

 widely. His son. General Stainforth, who has recently died, 

 inherited his tastes to a great extent. 



Professor Edward Forbes was born at Douglas, Isle of 

 Man, in February, 1815, and having studied in London and 

 Paris, in the latter place under Geoffrey St. Hilaire, De Blain- 

 ville, and Jussieu, he started a series of scientific tours, the 

 main features of which were dredging after marine forms in the 

 British, Mediterranean, and ^F^gean seas. In 1841 he joined 

 the "Beacon" as naturalist of the voyage, and on his return was 

 elected to the chair of botany, in Kings' College, London. In 

 185 1 he was chosen professor of natural history in the School of 

 Mines in Jermyn Street, Piccadilly, then just established ; and, 

 finally, in 1853 he was appointed to the vacant chair of natural 

 history in the university of Edinburgh. The circumstances of 

 his short illness and death at the early age of thirty-nine are not 

 yet forgotten by his contemporaries. He died November i8th, 

 1854. His principal writings on shell-fish are "On the Distri- 

 bution of Pulmoniferous Mollusca in Europe" (1838) ; "The 

 Radiata and Mollusca of the ^F)gean" (1843); "Travels in 

 Lycia," jointly written with Colonel Spratt (1846); Forbes' and 

 Hanley's "British Mollusca" (1853), a magnificent work in four 

 volumes ; besides his well-known standard books on other sub- 

 jects, e.g., "Star-Fishes," published in 1841. 



An admirable memoir of this much-regretted naturalist has 

 been published by Messrs. Wilson and Geikie. A better all- 

 round man has rarely lived. He may almost have been said to 

 have invented the dredge for scientific purposes. 



Professor Forbes also described the mollusca obtained by 

 the surveying voyages of the "Herald" and "Pandora," by 

 Capt. Kellett, R.N. and Lieut. Wood, R.N., in two papers 

 communicated to the Zoological Society of London, in 1850, 

 the first on the terrestrial, the second on the marine shells of 

 the expedition. There was not very much of novelty in these 

 gatherings, the expedition having cruised over well-investigated 



■ J.C., vi., Apr., 1890 



