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OBITUARY NOTICE. 



ROBERT CAIRNS. 



By WILLIAM MOSS. 



Plate 3. 



A MIGHTY hunter has been removed from our midst. By the death 

 of Robert Cairns, conchology has lost one of its most loyal and 

 earnest students, and a gap has been made in the membership of this 

 Society which it will take long to fill. Readers of the Journal of 

 Conchology have long been familiar with his name in the list of members 

 exhibiting interesting rarities at the monthly meetings of the Society. 

 To those of us who met him at these meetings, and who had the 

 privilege of his friendship and intimate association, he was indeed 

 a most delightful companion. At these meetings in Manchester, 

 beginning with the days when they were held in the offices of the 

 the late Mr. R. D. Darbishire, or later at the Manchester Museum, 

 his presence was always felt to be an encouragement and an inspira- 

 tion. If it were not invidious to give names, one would like to 

 mention a few of the old brigade, to whom these meetings were a 

 joy amid the rough and tumble of the business life of the day. 

 Amongst those who have "crossed the bar" are the late R. D. 

 Darbishire and Thomas Rogers. Then one remembers others who 

 have left the district — J. C. Melvill, Charles Oldham, and Dr. Hoyle. 

 Amongst those still in the district, and who were often the com- 

 panions of his rambles, are R. Standen, E. Collier, J. R. Hardy, 

 Fred. Taylor, J. W. Jackson, G. H. Taylor, J. D. Dean, B. R. Lucas, 

 the writer, and many others too numerous to mention. This close 

 personal association tended to make more interesting the scientific 

 studies in which we were all so deeply engaged. The rambles of the 

 Society were supplemented by many other excursions. Space will 

 not allow of the relation of more than a single incident in the happy 

 hunting grounds, illustrating a find of more than ordinary interest in 

 which he was associated. For many years — in the late eighties and 

 the early nineties — it was the privilege and pleasure of the writer and 

 his family to spend the summer holiday with Mr. Cairns and his 

 family at Peel in the Isle of Man. 



The land and freshwater shells were a never-ending source of 

 interest, and we collected most, if not all, the species known to the 

 island. In one valley, at Whitestrand Bay, Peel, from descriptions 

 of the usual habitat of Acme lineata, given us by Mr. Standen, we 

 were both convinced that this shell ought to be found. We had a 



