AN'NIVEESARY ADDRESS OP THE PRESIDEXT. xlv 



Trinity College, Dublin, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. 

 He was also a Eellow of the Eoyal Society, the Eoyal Astrono- 

 mical Society, the Eoyal Greographical Society; and he was a 

 Member of the Eoyal Irish Academy, and of the Greological and 

 Zoological Societies of Dublin. 



And now I have to add to the list of onr losses the name of 

 Dr. Hugh Falconer, who has been suddenly taken from us 

 within the last few days, at the early age of 56. When we re- 

 collect the zeal and ability Avith which he had directed his atten- 

 tion to the study of Palaeontology, and more especially to that 

 of the extinct Mammalia, the vast amount of information he 

 had collected, and the judicious and cautious use he made of it, 

 we may safely say that the Palaeontologists of the present day 

 have suffered an irreparable loss. 



Hugh Falconer was born at Forres in the North of Scotland 

 in 1809. He studied successively at the Universities of Aber- 

 deen and Edinburgh, and went out to India in 1830, as Assistant- 

 Surgeon on the Bengal Establishment. Taking a lively interest in 

 all branches of Natural History, his chief pursuit at this time was 

 Botany ; and in 1832 he succeeded Dr. Eoyle as the Superintend- 

 ent of the Botanic Gfardens at Suharunpoor. Placed thus at the 

 early age of twenty-three in a responsible and independent posi- 

 tion, his natural talents and tastes had a full field for their deve- 

 lopment. Having already in Calcutta examined a collection of 

 fossil bones from Ava, he now began his explorations in the Sub- 

 Himalayan or Sewalifc range of hills, which on his very first visit 

 he pronounced to be of Tertiary age analogous to the Molasse of 

 Switzerland. With the help of his friend and companion Captain, 

 now Col. Sir Proby T. Cautley, fossil remains of Miocene mamma- 

 lian genera were quickly found in great abundance. A still richer 

 deposit of these remains was found in 1834 by Lieutenants 

 Baker and Dueand, to which the attention of Dr. Falconer and 

 Capt. Cautley was at once directed, and it is perhaps not too 

 much to say that such a mine of mammalian remains has never 

 yet been met with in any other portion of the globe ; nor was it 

 less remarkable for the great number and vainety of species thus 

 unexpectedly brought to light. The results of these discoveries 

 were published by Dr. Falconer and Capt. Cautley in various sci- 

 entific journals both in India and in England, and so important 

 were they considered, that in 1837 the Council of this Society 

 awarded to them the Wollaston Medal. 



About tlie same time also his botanical duties led him to ex- 

 plore the snowy range of the Himalayas, whose lofty summits, 

 visible from his post at Suharunpoor, must have been long a con- 

 stant object of interest to his active and inquiring mind. Falconer 

 never forgot what he had once seen or learnt, and they who had 

 the good fortune to hear his observations on the glaciers and the 

 physical structure of that mountain-region, made on a recent 

 occasion at one of the meetings of the Eoyal Greographical Society, 



