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Obituary Notice of Fellow deceased. 



at Mycetozoa, especially beginners, are apt to publish a description of some 

 aberrant form, which they regard as a new species, but a larger survey will 

 frequently reveal the aberration as one of many variants grouped about and 

 merging into a type form, and quite unworthy of specific distinction. It is 

 the width of survey and the constant endeavonr to approximate the classifi- 

 cation to the relation and variation of the species of Mycetozoa as they occur 

 in Nature, under varying conditions of climate and locality, that confer on 

 the second edition of the monograph its unique authority. 



Although his chief endeavour was concentrated on this purpose, many of 

 the advances in the knowledge of the life-history and physiology of the 

 group were made by him or one or other of his children. The first observa- 

 tion of the ingestion of living bacteria by the swarm spores (flagellulse) was 

 his, and also that of the peculiar mode of division of the spore contents of 

 the Exosporeai after their escape from the spore wall. The remarkable 

 simultaneous division by karyokinesis of the nuclei of the active plasmodium 

 was first seen by his son, and Strasburger's observations of the karyokinetic 

 division of nuclei prior to spore formation in Trichia were confirmed and 

 extended to other genera and species. The complete life-history of the group, 

 and especially the point at which gametic union occurs, are still undetermined. 



My father became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1873 and of the 

 Boyal Society in 1898. He was a member of the Essex and Dorset Field 

 Clubs, and he was President of the British Mycological Society only two 

 years before his death. 



He was very fond of foreign travel, and it was remarkable how, after he 

 had been occupied for months with what might appear the work of a narrow 

 specialist, often hardly talking of anything besides his beloved " Creepies," 

 once free of his labour his mind responded to the charms of travel. He 

 rejoiced in life on board ship, and never suffered from sea-sickness. He twice 

 visited the North American continent, and his tours in Europe and Egypt 

 with members of his family were often vividly recalled by him. 



It was very rarely that he would allow himself to be enticed into paying- 

 visits in England, yet he had often immense enjoyment in them when once 

 lie had been induced to leave home. 



" Labour and Sorrow " are, as we know, the frequent attendants of the 

 declining years of a strong man's life, and to this his was no exception. He 

 suffered more and more from bronchitic attacks, to which he had always been 

 liable, and from other bodily ills. Between the attacks, however, he often 

 attained good measure of enjoyment in life, even in his later years, and owing 

 to the loving devotion of his daughter, on whom, as his powers failed, he 

 came to rely more and more, he was able to carry on his scientific work almost 

 to the end. As I have said, she has been able since his death to embody his 

 riper knowledge of the Mycetozoa, and her own, in the second edition of the 

 British Museum monograph. All that loving care could do to smooth his 

 path was done by his wife and the other members of his family. 



He died rather suddenly at his home at Highcliff, Lyme Begis, on Sunday, 



