JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 4O5 



Obituary. 



Charles Ashford. 



Few persons have in recent years done more to advance 

 the pliilosophical study of shells, and the anunals forming them, 

 than the subject of the present notice, who died suddenly from 

 apoplexy on the morning of January 31st of the present year. 



Charles Ashford was born at Baldock, Hertfordshire, on 

 January 7th, 1829, and when nine years old was sent to the 

 Friends' School at Ackworth, Yorkshire, where he remained as 

 scholar and teacher for a period of thirteen years, and where he 

 imbibed that strong love for conchology and other sciences 

 that distinguished him, and which he pursued with such marked 

 success in after life. 



Astronomy at one time, while at college, claimed a large 

 measure of his attention, and in his ardent pursuit of this study 

 he injured to some extent his right eye, which reduced him in 

 after years to the use of the left eye for all minute and critical 

 work. 



He left Ackworth in 1854, but before doing so compiled a 

 list of the MoUusca of Ackworth, which was published in the 

 'Zoologist' for April, 1854. 



For four years, 1875—8, he devoted his leisure time to the 

 study and collection of the Eocene Fossils from the freshwater 

 deposits at Hempstead, Sconce, Colwell Bay, Totland Bay, and 

 Headon Hill, in the Isle of Wight, and amassed some very 

 beautiful examples of these interesting remains. 



From the beginning of 1880, the time of his permanent 

 settlement at his brother's home at Christchurch, dates his 

 active prosecution of the study of the anatomical structure of 

 the mollusca, which he followed with such success until his 

 death, patiently amassing information upon the structure and 

 physiology of many species, elucidating his observations by 

 careful and conscientious measured drawings of the more 

 important organs. Pie first gave attention to and studied the 

 British Dart-bearers, the results of which were published in 



