225 



THE 



JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 



Vol. II. OCTOBER, 1905. No. 8. 



FREDERICK PRICE MARRAT. 



By JAMES COSMO MELVILL. 



(Read before the Society, September 13, 1905). 



During the first week of November, 1904, there passed away at his 

 residence in Liverpool, one who might well claim to be the "doyen" 

 of the older race of British naturalists, one who had served his 

 generation well in every way, and notably in furthering the study of 

 the Mollusca. Mr. Frederick P. Marrat had long passed the allotted 

 age of man, and was, at the time of his decease, in his eighty-fifth 

 year. By a melancholy coincidence, his son died almost on the 

 same day, and both were laid to rest simultaneously in Childwail 

 Churchyard. 



Mr. Marrat came of a naturalist stock, his father being Mr. William 

 Marrat, of Boston, Lincolnshire ; and it was either this gentleman, or 

 his eldest son, who discovered the two rare mosses, Brynim calo- 

 pliyllnvi R. Br. and B. marratii Hooker f and Wilson, in damp hollows 

 amongst the sandhills on the Lancashire coast, near Southport, in 

 1854.^ Both are still hardly known outside the original habitat. 



Mineralogy, and especially the study of Marine Mollusca, most 

 attracted the subject of our notice from the first, although he did not 

 neglect other branches of natural science ; and this interest, aided by 

 a wonderfully clear and accurate memory, coupled with a love of 



I c.f., Wilson, " Bry. Brit-, ' addeml.i, p. xi. , where the discoverer is alluded to as " INIr. W. M. 

 Marrat, of Liverpool. ' 



P 



