195 

 OBITUARY NOTICE: J. H. PONSONBY-FANE, F.Z.S. 



By J. COSxMO MELVILL. 



(Read before the Society, May gth, 1917). 



John Henry Ponsonby-Fane passed away at Brympton, Yeovil, on 

 nth September last, in his sixty-ninth year. He had for some Httle 

 time been in faihng health, but this did not dim his vivid interest in 

 rpalacological science, more particularly as regarded the non-marine 

 mollusca. His knowledge of the Helicidce, to mention but one large 

 group, was almost unequalled. His attention was especially drawn 

 towards the South African fauna, since the time of Krauss somewhat 

 neglected, and between 1890 and 1909 inclusive, in collaboration 

 with the writer of this notice, descriptive papers, about twenty in 

 number, appeared in the pages of the "Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History " on this subject. Altogether the new species 

 proposed totalled, speaking roundly, 250 — almost doubling those 

 previously recorded. It is true that some of them, intermediates 

 having been since discovered, are now either considered varieties, or 

 have been relegated to synonymy ; but the majority have passed 

 through the crucial furnace of criticism unscathed. 



High-minded, modest, chivalrous, and withal most charming of 

 characters, his loss is indeed deemed irreparable by his many friends, 

 and not least by myself. The style of his letters was delightful; they 

 all seemed to breathe an old-world courtesy ; and when, as was 

 rarely the case, a little argument on some knotty point was necessary, 

 it would be so well put as never to give the slightest cause for offence; 

 indeed, all these letters are well worth most carefully preserving, 

 being so characteristic of his nature.; but we are sure such an idea 

 would have been thoroughly deprecated by him ! 



We were at school together at Harrow in the early sixties ; but as 

 I was more than three years his senior, we were not thrown much 

 together in those pristine days. It was not till 1887-88 that we 

 decided to join our forces in the effort just mentioned. 



His other papers, of which I give a brief enumeration, were but 

 few in number. " A Check List of the Non-Marine Mollusca of 

 South Africa," though brought out in our joint names, was in reality 

 in most part his own most careful work, unaided. We likewise col- 

 laborated in one or two other papers, e.g., the collections of land 

 shells made by the late Mr. Theodore Bent in the Hadramaut district 

 of South Arabia. 



His enumerations of the species contained in the genera Sailptaria 

 Pfr. and Libera Garrett shew much discernment and accurate know- 



