358 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. II, NO. 12, OCTOBER, I906. 



city he spent several years from 1864 — he took the first prize for a dis- 

 play of shells at an Industrial Exhibition in 1865, and formed a small 

 conchological society, of which he acted as secretary. He was an 

 active member of the Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical 

 Society, of which he was afterwards made a life member, and to which 

 he contributed a valuable paper on ''The Limnseidseof Birmingham," 

 thus early showing his bent for the study of that group, of which he 

 made a specialized collection, probably one of the best ever put 

 together. He returned to Leeds about 187 1, and continued to live 

 there the remainder of his life, taking active part in the various 

 societies, the Leeds Naturalists' Club, the Co-operative Field Club, 

 the Conchological Club (now the Conchological Society of Great 

 Britain and Ireland) and the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union. 



It was but a short while after his return to Leeds that he and three 

 others founded the Conchological Club — and he was its first president, 

 afterwards taking his turn of all the other offices — and it was about the 

 same time that he assisted Mr. Taylor when he commenced the 

 Journal of Conchology . 



As a man and a naturalist he was loved and appreciated by all who 

 knew him, and his well-knit sturdy form, his fine round open 

 countenance, with close-trimmed hair and beard, were always a 

 welcome sight to his many friends, while his conversation — enlivened 

 by an inimitable and subtle dry humour, devoid of all malice — was 

 always enjoyed at a naturalists' gathering. 



Scientifically he was not a prodigal writer — his excessive caution 

 and distrust of his own judgment prevented him from publishing 

 much — and there are but few papers of his in print. Most of them 

 deal in a pleasant chatty way with his excursions in search of natural 

 history objects, one of them, dealing with his visit to Loch Skene on 

 a conchological visit to see and collect Limncea burnetii, being par- 

 ticularly interesting; unfortunately, however, it only appeared in a 

 Leeds newspaper's weekly edition. Some of his notes appeared in 

 "The Naturalist," others in this journal in its earlier volumes. But 

 if he was not a prolific writer himself, he had the sublime gift of 

 inspiring enthusiasm in others, and there are naturalists more than 

 one who owe to him the inspiration which brought them into the 

 field. He was a happy combination of the all-round naturalist, who 

 knows most of the objects he sees and takes a delight in all the 

 phenomena of nature, with the specialist whose particular line of 

 research was pursued with persevering ardour. So besides knowing 

 much field-botany, entomology and ornithology, he was before every- 

 thing a student of land and freshwater moUusca — and of the Limnaeidae 

 in particular. He was also a student of general literature and 

 particularly partial to the homely verse of Burns. 



