XX 



Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



beasts and his still stranger capacity to overcome without effort the shyness 

 akin to suspicion which the European as a rule inspires in Eastern races whose 

 instinctively higher ideals have not become impaired by contact with the 

 essentially material culture of the West. Probably no contemporary official 

 knew more intimately or was held in higher regard by the Sikh community 

 than Cunningham, who spoke and wrote its language, was learned in its 

 scriptures and beliefs and had won its heart, in his earlier and athletic days, 

 by becoming a redoubtable wrestler in the Sikh style. The devotion to 

 Cunningham of these soldiers of fortune from the Punjab was as sincere as 

 that of the fishermen of the North Sea, who also regarded him as one of them- 

 selves and whose affections he had gained when, a lad in the pursuit of natural 

 knowledge, he had shared their vigils and their hardships off the east coast 

 of Scotland. His unsought influence was as manifest among the Lepchas and 

 Bhotias of Sikkirn with whom he had come in contact ; to be known as his 

 friend was a sure passport to their affection. But no one was less conscious 

 of this magnetic power than Cunningham himself and the simplicity of 

 character to which it was due enabled him to fulfil as few have done the 

 Greek injunction so to order life as "not to be talked about for good or for 

 evil among men." 



The value of Cunningham's services to the State was not unrecognised. 

 Lord Dufferin, when Governor-General, of his own motion appointed 

 Cunningham an Honorary Surgeon to the Viceroy, and he remained on the 

 staff of succeeding Governors-General until he retired. In June 1893 he 

 was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire ; after his retire- 

 ment he was appointed an Honorary Physician to the King. In 1876 he was 

 elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society. When he took up the duties of 

 secretary, to the committee of the Zoological Garden at Calcutta he was made 

 a Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society ; on his retirement from 

 India, he became a Eellow. In 1889 he was elected a Eellow of the Royal 

 Society, and in 1898 his great services to the Calcutta Zoological Garden were 

 commemorated by the presentation to that institution of a bronze medallion 

 portrait provided by his friends. 



Cunningham died, after a brief illness, at his residence in Torquay on 

 December 31, 1914, and the friends who, four days later, laid his remains at 

 rest, felt how pleasant a page in the book of their lives had been closed, 

 leaving them a memory which cannot die, to " walk in its whiteness the hall 

 of the heart." 



D. P. 



