xxxviii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



which he gave to those of his students in whom he perceived the aptitude for 

 research. He knew all the good men in his class and stimulated them to 

 work. He also took an active interest in securing teaching posts for them. 



As an investigator he was painstaking and germinal ; in most of the work 

 done by his pupils there is discernible the development of ideas which had 

 their roots in his teaching. As a medical statesman his record is honourable, 

 and as a man his death will be felt as a real personal loss by the thousands 

 of his pupils scattered in all parts of the world. 



A. M. 



EDWAKD ALFKED MINCHIN, 1866-1915. 



By the death of E. A. Minchin at the age of 49 years on September 30, we 

 have lost one of the most brilliant and most industrious of the zoological 

 investigators of our generation. Though he seemed to choose for his special 

 researches some of the most difficult and intricate problems that his science 

 afforded, he took a delight in training his hand and eye to overcome the 

 greatest of technical difficulties and in opening up new lines of research for 

 himself and his successors. His patience and care in minute details, his 

 firm grasp of the general principles of the subject he had in hand, and his 

 determination to be satisfied only with the very best work he could produce, 

 are evident in all his writings. His devotion to science and untiring energy 

 are shown in the number of books and scientific papers that constitute his 

 life's work. 



He was born at Weston-super-Mare in 1866. In his early years he 

 suffered from a constitutional weakness and a physical disability which 

 prevented him from following the ordinary pursuits of a boy's life. At 

 14 years of age he joined his parents in India and was sent to the Bishop 

 Cotton School at Bangalore, and it was during the years that he spent in 

 India that he was able to indulge freely in his favourite pursuits in Natural 

 History and to develop his powers of observation. 



On returning to this country he gained an Exhibition at Keble College, 

 Oxford, and began to study for Honours in Natural Science. During his 

 undergraduate career the Zoological Department of the University under- 

 went several rapid and unsettling changes as regards its teaching staff, 

 owing to the serious illness of Prof. Moseley, but notwithstanding the 

 disadvantages which he suffered in this respect he took his degree in 1890 

 with first-class honours in Zoology. 



