346 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. 9, NO. II, JULY, I9OO. 



graphical extract as G.W., 1 a compositor in Messrs. Spottiswoode's 

 printing office, became his close friend and ally, and together they 

 scanned the shops and sailors' quarters surrounding the Docks, in 

 search of possible trophies, and occasionally their zeal was well 

 rewarded. 



A little later he formed the acquaintance of Dr. John Edward 

 Gray, of the British Museum, and, in 1833, attended the meeting of 

 the British Association, then in its infancy, at Cambridge, Prof. Adam 

 Sedgwick, F.R.S., the eminent geologist, being president for the year. 

 Here he widened his knowledge of and acquaintance with both men 

 and mollusca, and was appointed chiet of an exploring excursion made 

 to Wicken Fen and the Ely Marshes, whose solitary inn, still existing, 

 with the sign "Five Miles from anywhere," bears the best testimony 

 to the solitude of what, at all events then, was a 'terra incognita,' 

 w r here men, women and children worked in agricultural gangs almost 

 like slaves in the partially reclaimed fen. Here rare plants such as 

 the Senecio paludosus, S. palustris, and the scarce orchid Liparis 

 Loeselii were seen but by few, while the large Copper Butterfly (Z. 

 dispar^ now long since extinct, and the Swallowtail (P. machaoii), with 

 many a rare moth, frequently eluded their pursuers on the treacherous 

 wastes they inhabited. Many fluviatile mollusca, especially Planorbis 

 and Sphceria, likewise abounded, and still do as I can personally testify, 

 at Wicken,' 2 and no doubt Reeve exhaustively studied these during 

 this excursion. 



A few years afterwards, in Paris, he read a paper on the Classifica- 

 tion of the Mollusca. This was his first scientific contribution, very 

 closely, however, followed by the more ambitious 'Conchologia 

 Systematica," in two quarto volumes, published 1840-41, by Longman 

 & Co., with 300 plates. To meet the large expense of this work he 

 applied the whole of the fortune left him by his father, viz. : — The 

 ninth share of a reversionary interest in an estate on Ludgate Hill. 



It was now very evident that scientific studies had taken so much 

 hold on him as to unfit him from pursuing any calling in which they 

 had no share; and it was therefore more than fortunate that Reeve 

 was enabled through his knowledge of mollusca, to make a wonderful 

 bargain in the purchase and re-sale of the von Ryder shells at Rotter- 

 dam. These had been procured in the East Indies, mostly in the 

 Moluccas or Spice Islands, by the General of that name, and were 



1 George Walker. Cyprcea Walkeri Reeve was named in his honour. 



2 This interesting relic of fen-land is now on the market, and there exist grave fears on the 

 part of zoologists and botanists alike, that unless steps are taken with a view to preserve them as 

 a happy hunting-ground of the future in their pristine condition, the whole will at no distant date 

 be reclaimed. 



