BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. xlix 



developed into acute rheumatism, complicated witL. disease 

 of the heart and lungs, which proved fatal on the morning 

 of January 31, 1865. On February 4 his remains were com- 

 mitted to their last resting-place, at Kensal Green, in the 

 presence of a large number of his sorrowing friends and 

 fellow-labourers. 



At the time of his death Dr. Falconer was a Yice-President 

 of the Royal Society and Foreign Secretary of the Geological 

 Society. He had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 in 1845, and in the same year he had been offered the Secre- 

 taryship of the Geological Society, which he had been obliged 

 to decline, as his time was fully occupied with the Sewalik 

 collection in the British Museum. Foreign countries had 

 not failed to acknowledge his transcendent merits as a ISTa- 

 turalist. Besides being a Fellow of the Royal, Linnean, 

 Geological, Zoological and Horticultural Societies at home, 

 and a Member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, he liad been 

 elected a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia (1836), Foreign Member of the 

 Imperial Austrian Society of Agriculture (1840), Correspond- 

 ing Member of the National Institute of Washington (1840), 

 Corresj)onding Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of 

 Turin (1844), Hon. Member of the Natural History Society 

 of Hesse Darmstadt (1846), Hon. Member of the Academia 

 Valdarnese del Poggio (1859), Corresponding Member of the 

 Imperial Society of Emulation of Abbeville (1863), Corres- 

 ponding Member of the Imperial and Royal Geological Society 

 of Vienna (1863), and Corresponding Member of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Italy (1863). 



As an additional proof of the high esteem in which he was 

 held by men of Science, it may be mentioned that, at a 

 meeting held in London on February 25th, 1865, Sir Proby T. 

 Cautley, K.C.B., in the Chair, it was resolved ' to record the 

 great loss sustained by Science in the early death of the late 

 Dr. Falconer, and to perpettiate his name as a naturalist and 

 a scholar by a suitable memorial.' 



It was also resolved that this memorial should include 

 a marble bust, to be placed in the rooms of one of the 

 Scientific Societies, or elsewhere, in London, as might be 

 determined. 



One of the objects in which Dr. Falconer had taken deep 



VOL. I. c 



