xlvi Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



shells, bats, birds, etc., round London and elsewhere. Most of the birds he 

 collected were shot and stuffed by his own hand ; he also became a good 

 fisherman. 



Astronomy was another of Buckton's favourite studies, and, being always 

 alive to the interest of collateral issues in science, he started quite early 

 grinding telescopic specula. Frankland, with whom he afterwards became 

 intimate, vied with him in being the first English physicist to produce 

 specula on glass, which method had been lately inaugurated by the Frencji 

 philosopher Foucault. Subsequently, Buckton worked specula of 12 inches 

 diameter, and, as an amateur, mounted them equatorially. 



On the death of his father, he moved into London, residing at Queen's 

 Gardens, W., where he built himself a circular observatory on the leads 

 of his house, and made more than one telescope, using his own brass 

 turnings, etc. About this time he became the pupil, friend and assistant of 

 Professor A. W. von Hofmann (of whom, it will be remembered, Sir William 

 Perkin and other distinguished men were also pupils), at the Boyal College 

 of Chemistry. His first recorded scientific paper was " Observations on the 

 Deportment of Diplatosomine with Cyanogen," published in the ' Journal of 

 the Chemical Society ' (vol. iv, pp. 26 to 33), and subsequently republished 

 in translation, in several French and German periodicals in 1851 and 1852. 

 A succession of other papers followed, among the most important being those 

 relating to his discovery and isolation of the radical, mercuric methyl, etc. 

 (< Proc. Eoy. Soc.,' vol. ix, 1857 to 1859, pp. 91, 92, 309 to 316 ; ' Phil. Trans./ 

 1858, pp. 163 to 169 ; 1859, pp. 417 to 435). The last of the series, worked 

 out with the collaboration of William Odling, was upon aluminium 

 compounds, and was published in 'Proc. Eoy. Soc.,' vol. xiv, 1865, pp. 19 

 to 21. A full list will be found in the Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific 

 Papers. 



Meantime Buckton had been unobtrusively carrying on his Natural 

 History studies, his earliest recorded papers on the subject being " On the 

 Application of Cyanide of Potassium to Killing Insects " (■ Zoologist,' 1854, 

 vol. xiv, pp. 436 to 438) and " Notice of several species of Bats captured in 

 England during the present autumn " (' Proc. Linn. Soc.,' vol. ii, 1854, pp. 259 

 to 261). 



In 1845, Buckton became a Fellow of the Linnean Society, serving in 1855-6 

 upon its Council, and coming into contact with Yarrell, Westwood, Saunders, 

 Huxley, Hooker, and other naturalists. In 1852 he joined the Chemical 

 Society, and in 1857 the Royal Society, when he became a member of its 

 Philosophic Club, the meetings of which he attended with great interest, till 

 extreme old age compelled him to relinquish them. In 1883 he became 

 a Fellow of the Entomological Society. He served on the Councils of all 

 these Societies from time to time. He was also elected a Member of the 

 Entomological Society of France ; the Academy of Natural Sciences at 

 Philadelphia, etc. 



In 1865, Buckton married Mary Ann, the only sister of his friend 

 Professor Odling, of Oxford. He purchased the estate of Weycombe, at 



