LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LOKDON, XCVll 



markable Purbeck mammalian genus " Plagiaulax,^^ discovered by 

 Mr. Beckles near Swanage {op. cit. yol. xiii. p. 261) ; this was fol- 

 lowed in 1862 by a second paper on the same subject {pp. cit. 

 vol. xviii. p. 348) , Having occupied himself during several years 

 with the special investigation of the mammalian fauna of the plio- 

 cene as distinguished from that of the quaternary period of Europe, 

 he was conducted to the examination of the cave-fauna of England. 

 In 1860 he communicated a memoir on the numerous ossiferous 

 caves of Grower, explored or discovered by his friend Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Wood (Quart. Journ. Greol. Soc. vol. xvi. p. 487). The 

 existence of JElephas aniiquus and Bhinoceros Jiemitoechus as mem- 

 bers of the cave-fauna was then for the first time established, and 

 the age of that fauna precisely defined as posterior to the boulder 

 clay or period of the glacial submergence of England. In 1862 

 Dr. Falconer communicated to the British Association at Cam- 

 bridge an account of Elephas melitensis, the pigmy fossil elephant 

 of Malta, discovered, with other, extinct mammals, by his friend 

 Captain Spratt, C.B., in the ossiferous cave of Zebbug and else- 

 where. This unexpected form presented the Proboscidia in a 

 new light to naturalists. Further researches on the general 

 questions concerning the same family appeared in a memoir pub- 

 lished in the ' Natural History Eeview ' in 1863, the title of 

 which but inadequately indicated tlie range of the subjects dis- 

 cussed. 



"While exploring the Himalayas in his early days. Falconer's 

 attention had been closely directed to the physical features which 

 distinguished them from mountain-ranges in temperate regions, 

 and more especially to the general absence from their southern 

 valleys of the great lakes so comraon in corresponding situations 

 in the Alps. When the hypothesis of the excavation of lake-basins 

 by glacial action was brought forward, he took a share in the dis- 

 cussion and combated the view by an appeal to the contradictory 

 evidence furnished by the Himalayas, the lakes of Lombardy, and 

 the Dead Sea (Proceedings of the Eoyal Greographical Society, 

 1864, p. 38, and ' Eeader,' March and April, 1864 j. In connexion 

 with this subject it may be mentioned thjt his last public act was 

 to advocate the grant of £100 by the Council of the Eoyal Society 

 to Sir Henry James, for accurately determining by levelling the 

 amount of depression of the Dead Sea below the level of the Me- 

 diterranean. 



For nearly thirty years Dr. Falconer had been engaged more or 

 less with the investigation of a subject which has lately occupied 



LINN. PECO. — TOL. IX, y 



