Geoffrey Nevill

Abstract

WE have to announce the comparatively early death of Mr. G. Nevill, which took place at Davos Platz, after a long and lingering illness, on February 10. This removes from among us another of the scanty band of English conchologists, whose ranks, only a few days before, suffered a similar loss in Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys. Mr. Nevill's labours have been principally confined to India, where he was for many years one of the assistant-superintendents under Dr. J. Anderson in the Indian Museum, Calcutta; his work is, therefore, better known to those who have collected in the East and written on the molluscan fauna of that part of the world. For many years he was a constant correspondent and colleague of the writer's, who can testify to the large and varied knowledge Mr. Nevill possessed of the different forms. A very large number of species were sent him by Mr. Nevill from time to time, many of which still remain to be described. Mr. Nevill was the author of many papers on his favourite study, most of which are to be found in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal; but perhaps his best and most useful work, particularly to those interested in distribution, was the “Hand List of Mol-lusca in the Indian Museum”(Part I. comprising the Pulmonata and Prosobranchia-Neurobranchia published in December, 1878, and is remarkable for the accuracy with which the localities of the different species is given, and the collections from whence they were received. He also catalogued the Ampullariacea and Valvatidse and Paludinidæ). Unfortunately, the whole catalogue of the Gastropoda is incomplete, for his health failed him altogether in 1881. Yet he struggled on to the last with his task, even when unable to leave his room to go as usual to his office in the Museum, and was compelled eventually to give up his appointment and return to Europe. The entire arrangement of the Mollusca in the new Museum formed a part of his work when there, and it was well and admirably done. Almost his last work in the field was at Mentone, in 1878-79, where, in the post-Tertiary beds, he made a careful collection of the shells, particularly the smaller species, a list of which he published in the Zoological Society's Proceedings. Yet even so late as last summer, when hardly able to move from weakness and partial paralysis, he was getting together the land-shells to be obtained in the country around the Lago de Como.