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3n /nbemonam. 
WALTER PERCY SLADEN, F.L.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S. 
BORN AT MEERCLOLGH HOUSE, HALIFAX, YORKSHIRE, 30TH JUNE, 1849 ; 
DIED AT FLORENCE, ITALY, llTH JUNE, 1900. 
In his prime, endowed with rich mental gifts, a refined and 
lovable nature, happy in his family life, beloved of his friends, 
respected by all who knew him, bountifully favoured by fortune, 
with abundant and precious material collected together sufficient 
for years of scientific research — suddenly, the bright light of his 
genius Nvas extinguished at Florence, on 11th June, 1900. 
We, who held him so dear, have in the death of W, Percy 
Sladen to mourn the loss of the most brilliant and most 
promising of our little circle of Yorkshire naturalists. 
An appreciative and able memoir appeared in Xature of 12th 
July, 1900, from the pen of his friend Dr. G. B. Howes. It is 
little we can add to that memoir ; perhaps, however, something 
more may be said as to his earlier years with which his 
distinguished southern friends were less acquainted. 
In the sixties and early seventies, several ardent lovers of 
Nature met together from time to time at the Halifax Museum, 
and at each other's residences, to compare notes, to exchange 
ideas, and to discuss Evolution, the origin of species, the work 
of Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall, which at that day engaged the 
attention of the scientific world ; but not content with mere 
discussion, material for study was obtained, and under the skilled 
instruction of the late A. Campbell (curator to the Halifax 
Museum, and one time assistant to Professor Jamieson, of 
Edinburgh), dissections were made and skeletons prepared of 
apes, parrots, snakes, crocodiles, fishes, and other animals, and 
a practical acquaintance with type-structures acquired. The 
specimens in the Museum were compared with fossil forms ; 
dredging excursions were made by the friends conjointly or 
separately (tj investigate marine forms, especially invertebrates) 
