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OBITUARY NOTICE OF 

 THE LATE JOSEPH CHARLES HIPPOLYTE CROSSE. 



Adapted from the French Memoir of C. Poyard and H. Fischer, 



By CLARA NORDLINGER. 



With a portrait presented to the Society by the family of the late M. Crosse. 



(Read before the Society, May ioth, i£ 



Joseph Charles Hippolyte Crosse was born on October ist, 1826, 

 and was educated at the College Bourbon, where he studied diligently 

 and distinguished himself chiefly in the class of humanity. He was 

 gifted with rare facility for learning, and at an early age his range of 

 knowledge was extensive. 



At college he excelled in Latin verse, and his work was equally 

 appreciated by his professors and fellow students. On leaving the 

 College Bourbon, Crosse took his legal degree as became the son 

 of a lawyer, and succeeded in this undertaking as in everything he 

 attempted. But his own inclinations were already strongly urging him 

 towards the natural sciences to which he was later to devote all his 

 energy. When hardly fifteen years old, a nephew of Adanson had given 

 him a number of shells which formed the nucleus of the magnificent 

 conchological collections gathered by him during fifty years of patient 

 study and research. In 1849 ne visited the southern coast of France 

 and for the first time travelled with a purely scientific aim. He brought 

 back a number of specimens and henceforward devoted himself 

 entirely to his favourite study. Ere long he had put himself into 

 communication with the principal workers in the same field both at 

 home and abroad. 



In the year 1850 Petit de la Saussaye founded the Journal de 

 Conchyliolgie, which, however, soon ceased to appear. Six years later 

 Messrs. Fischer and Bernardi resuscitated the Journal, and in 1861 

 Crosse began to collaborate and to give the paper his welcome material 

 assistance. For thirty-seven years Crosse and Fischer were associated 

 in the editorship of the Journal which soon took a high place in the 

 field of scientific literature. 



Crosse's next great undertaking was the work on the Terrestrial and 

 Fluviatile Mollusca of Mexico and Guatemala, which forms one of the 

 seven parts of Milne Edwards' Zoological Researches on the history 

 of the fauna of Central America and Mexico. Crosse and Fischer 

 worked together, and in 1869, two years after Milne Edwards had been 

 entrusted with the organization of this great scientific publication, 

 Crosse was writing the introduction to the portion confided to him and 

 his friend. Their work was continued uninterruptedly for twenty-five 



