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OBITUARY. 
feel that his pursuits of Natural History had, perhaps, contributed largely to the 
complacency and the elasticity of his almost patriarchal age. 
William Elford Leach, M.D., F.R.S.—Few men, says Dr. Boot, have 
ever devoted themselves to Zoology with greater zeal than Dr. Leach, or attained 
at an early period of life a higher reputation, at home and abroad, as a profound 
naturalist. He was one of the most laborious and successful, as well as one of 
the most universal, cultivators of Zoology which this country has ever produced. 
His discoveries in the different classes of the Vertehrata^ especially birds, were 
extensive ; but it was in Entomology and Malacology that his labours have been 
most known, and his improvements of the greatest importance. His know¬ 
ledge of the Crustacea was superior to that of any other naturalist of his time, 
and his arrangement the best, until the work of Dr. Milne Edwards appeared, 
two years ago. After a long suspension of his studies from ill-health, during 
which, and up to the period of his death, he was attended by the most devoted 
of sisters, he returned to his favourite occupation with his habitual ardour; and 
the letters he wrote to his scientific friends in this country exhibited the same 
devotion to the study of Nature which distinguished the brighter years of his 
life. His principal work. The Natural History of the MoUusca of Great 
Britain^ in the possession of his friend, Mr. Bell, is not yet published. 
His other works were : Malacostraca Podophthalma Britannioe^ 4to., 1815 and 
1816, not finished; Zoological Miscellang^ 3 vols. 8vo., 1817; On the Genera 
and Species of Proboscideous Insects^ 8vo., 1817. He described the animals 
taken by Cranch in the expedition of Capt. Tuckey to the Congo ; and was the 
author of valuable articles in the Bncyclopcedia Britannica^ Edinburgh Encyclo- 
pcedia^ Philosophical Transactions^ Zoological Journal, Memoirs of the Wernerian 
Society, Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles. Between 1810 and 1820 he 
contributed seven papers to the Transactions of the Limiean Society: three on 
insects; a general arrangement of the Crustacea, Myriapoda, and Arachnides, 
a very laborious work; two descriptive of ten new genera of Bats; one on 
three new species of Glareola. He died in Italy, last year, of cholera. 
Dr. B. continues:— Adam Afzaleus, Professor of Botany at Upsal, was, I 
believe, the last of the pupils of Linn^us, and distinguished, like all the pupils of 
that great man, for his exact botanical knowledge. He contributed two papers to 
the Transactions of the Linnoean Society: “ On the Botanical History of Trifo¬ 
lium alpestre, T. medium, and T. pratense" in 1798. He resided in Sierra 
Leone for several years, and published his principal work, Genera Plantarum 
Guineensium, in 1804 ; and several dissertations on the medicinal plants of that 
country, besides some other works. 
