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OBITUARY NOTICE OF THE LATE REV. WILLIAM TURNER. 



(Read before the Society, November 13th, 1897). 



The Rev. William Turner, whose death on 21st September we regret 

 to have to record, was born in 1826 at Preston, Berwickshire, but his 

 boyhood was spent in the sea-coast town of Dunbar, where may have 

 been laid in the active observant mind of the boy the foundation of 

 that interest in conchology which was awakened and developed in 

 later years. After a distinguished career at the University of Edin- 

 burgh, especially in philosophy, Mr. Turner chose the clerical profes- 

 sion, and settled in a country charge in Aberdeenshire, where he 

 devoted himself with rare zeal and intensity to the duties of his office, 

 and to all scholarly study pertaining to his profession ; and bye and 

 bye was recognized in the north-east of Scotland as one of the fore- 

 most preachers and ripest scholars in the church ; and but for his 

 retiring disposition and excessive modesty, would doubtless have 

 been much more widely known. 



Mr. Turner was a man of the widest intellectual activity. His 

 life as a country clergyman, with extended holiday rambles, gave him 

 the opportunity of studying botany and kindred subjects, and it was 

 not in his nature to miss the opportunity; at first he was especially 

 devoted to botanical science, and his stores of varied and accurate 

 knowledge were the constant astonishment of his friends. 



Comparatively late in life he was attracted by conchology, and 

 pursued it with the keenest interest, leaving behind him a valuable 

 museum of shells, especially rich in species from Borneo and South 

 Africa. 



It is, however, right to note that these studies were but his 

 recreation. Removed from his country charge to Edinburgh some 

 twenty-five years ago, he retained all his devotion to the work of his 

 profession, till failing health compelled him two or three years ago to 

 resign his office. Though strength had been declining for some 

 years, his final illness lasted only a few days. 



British Snails as Human Food. 



During a recent visit to Teignmouth, South Devon, I was surprised while walk- 

 ing along the sea shore one morning to meet a man occupied in picking up shells, 

 not with a view to collecting, but merely for edible purposes. He stated that he 

 often made his breakfast of snails gathered in his morning walk, and suggested that 

 the excellence of the mollusk had only to become more widely known for it to be 

 better appreciated and valued as human food. — Peter Lawson [Read before the 

 Society, December 8th, 1897). 



