l62 



OBITUARY NOTICE. 



PROFESSOR DR. OSCAR BOETTGER. 



By J. R. LE B. TOMLIN, M.A., F.E.S. 



(Read l)efore the Society, Jan. :ith, igii). 



We have to deplore ihe loss of another eminent conchologist — one 

 who was well-known by correspondence to many of us. We owe the 

 following details of his career to an able article by his friend Dr. W. 

 Kobelt, published in the "Nachrichtsblatt der Deutschen Malak. Ges. 

 igio, Heft iv." 



Oscar Boettger was born on March 31st, 1844, and was the son of 

 a well-known professor of chemistry at Frankfurt-am-Main — Dr. 

 Rudolf Boettger, the inventor of gun-cotton and safety matches. He 

 was a born collector and at an early age began to study the fauna of 

 his native place. While yet a schoolboy he came under the influence 

 of the famous palfeontologist Hermann von Ma)er, and of Otto Volger, 

 and it was probably due to the latter that Boettger, on leaving school, 

 resolved to follow the mining profession, and in 1863 entered the 

 School of Mining at Freiberg. Unfortunately an accident under- 

 ground compelled him to give up mining engineering, and he decided 

 to take up teaching. In 1866, therefore, he entered the University 

 of Giessen, and soon after graduating there received the degree of 

 Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Wiirzburg. In 1873 he 

 received an appointment as Professor of Natural Science at his native 

 town of Frankfurt. Henceforth his studies were pretty equally 

 devoted to three subjects — the Reptilia, Fossil MoUusca, and Recent 

 MoUusca, and he soon became a recognised authority on all three. 

 Up to April, 19 10, according to a list of his own compilation, his 

 published papers amounted to 324. His forte lay in the working out 

 of travellers' collections, and his infinite patience in the determination 

 and revision of critical forms will be greatly missed. 



He was an influential member of the directorate of the Neue 

 Zoologische Gesellschaft, and from 1896 the editor of their ofificial 

 organ. 



He had an altogether remarkable talent for rousing an interest in 

 nature, though his methods were often far from conventional and by 

 no means to the satisfaction of his superiors— especially in later life 

 when he developed sundry eccentricities that laid him open to raillery. 

 But he was to be seen at his best as a teacher on one of his regular 

 weekly excursions round Frankfurt with his pupils, and any naturalist 

 of the younger generation in Frankfurt is almost sure to have derived 

 his first impulse from these rambles. There was, unfortunately, a 



