BIOGKAPIIICAL SKETCH. XXV 



In 1830 Dr. Falconer proceeded to India as an Assistant- 

 Surgeon in the Hon. East India Company's service, and 

 arrived in Calcutta in September of the same year. Here he 

 at once undertook an examination of fossil bones from Ava, 

 in the possession of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and 

 published a description of them in the third volume of the 

 ' Gleanings in Science,' an Indian joui-nal then conducted by 

 Mr. James Prinsep. This notice ' was slight and modest in 

 its scope ; but the cultivators of Science in India were then 

 few in number, and its appearance at once gave Falconer a 

 recognized position in their roll. 



Early in 1831 Dr. Falconer was ordered to the army 

 station at Meerut, in the North- Western provinces. His first 

 and last military duty, during twenty-six years of service, was 

 to take charge of a detachment of invalids proceeding from 

 Meerut to the sanitarium of Landour, in the Himalayahs. 

 This led him to pass through Suharunpoor in April 1831, 

 where the late Dr. Eoyle was then superintendent of the 

 Botanic Garden. Kindred tastes and common pursuits soon 

 knit Falconer and Eoyle together ; and, at the instance of his 

 friend, Falconer was speedUy appointed to officiate for him 

 during leave of absence, and, on Eoyle's departure for 

 Europe, in 1832, to succeed him in charge of the Botanic 

 Garden. Thus, at the early age of twenty-three, did he find 

 himself advanced to a responsible and independent public 

 post, offering to a naturalist the most enviable opportunities 

 for research; so fertile was the Indian service then in 

 chances to rise for any young of&cer who chose to make the 

 exertion. 



Suharunpoor is situated in lat. 29° 58' E". and long. 77° 30' 

 E., between the Jumna and Ganges rivers, outside the belt of 

 Terai forest, which lies between the mountains and the 

 plains, and is distant about twenty-five miles from the 

 Sewalik Hills, beyond which rise the Himalayahs. It is thus 

 most favourably situated as a central station for Natural 

 History investigations; the rivers, plains, forests, and hills 

 teeming with life in every shape, and the range of elevation 

 combining, within a short distance, the features and produc- 

 tions of tropical temperature and alpine regions insensibly 



' See p. 412 of this volume. 



