THE ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. 
71 
his knowledge of the osteology of living vertebrates to good 
account in his examination of fossil remains. The specimens 
he collected are still remarkable for their excellent state of 
preservation and it is worthy of comment that so recently as 
1912 Dr. Ekandranath Ghosh was able to prepare a minute 
histological account of the anatomy of certain slugs based 
entirely on the examination of specimens preserved by 
Stoliczka in 1872. 
In the early days of his work in India Stoliczka was in 
the habit of sending the zoological specimens he obtained to 
Vienna, where several of his types of reptiles are still pre¬ 
served, but later on, as he came to recognize the scientific needs 
of India, he presented the many invaluable collections he 
made in the East to the Asiatic Society’s Museum or, later, 
to the Indian Museum, to which he bequeathed the specimens 
in his possession at the time of his death. 
William Theobald’s ^ knowledge of zoology was less ex¬ 
tensive than that possessed by Blanford and Stoliczka, but 
his work on the reptiles and the molluscs is of enduring 
importance and the collections he made are still of very great 
value. Theobald came to India in 1849 as an assistant to 
the Geological Surveyor under the Government of Bengal and 
was connected with the subsequently instituted Geological 
Survey of India until 1881. He died in 1908. 
With the names of Blanford, Stoliczka and Theobald 
must be joined that of Geoffrey Nevill, who after the founda¬ 
tion of the Indian Museum as a separate institution was 
Assistant Secretary and Librarian therein. It is to him that 
the excellence of our collection of shells is still in great part 
due. 
With these names of naturalists now no longer living 
that of the veteran zoologist and geographer Lt.-Colonel H. H. 
Godwin-Austen calls for special mention. In a ripe old age 
he continues in England to prosecute the malaeological studies 
which the companionship of Blanford and his contemporaries 
fostered in the Asiatic Society s Museum. To Colonel Godwin- 
^ Obituary Notice. Bee. Oeol. Survey India, Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 10-11 
(11)09-10). 
