Besidee the works to which reference is made above, he was the associate of Mr. Hanley in a great work on the 'History of British Molluscs,' which was published in parts, and completed in 1853. This work is one of the most complete and exhaustive on the subject of our native Molluscs, and all the descriptions were written by Forbes. He contributed several valuable papers and maps on the distribution of animals and plants to the last edition of Johnston's 'Physical Atlas.' He also indulged in general literature, and the world was somewhat surprised after his decease to find that for some years ho had beet a contributor to the review department of the 'Literary Gazette.' His papers were collected together by the editor, and published under the title of 'Literary Papers by the late Edward Forbes.' The third volume of the 'Bibliographis Geologia et Zoologia' of Agassiz and Strickland, published by the Ray Society in 1850, contains a list of eighty-nine papers and works supplied by the author himself, and arranged in chronological order. His contributions to natural history science were perhaps snore numerous during the last four years of his life than during any former period of the same length. Few men have laboured more assiduously in the path of natural science, or produced a greater impression on the current of those who cultivated the same branches of knowledge, as himself; and the time has not yet arrived when a clear estimate cau be made of the influence he has exerted upon the time in which he lived.
FOltBES, JAMES, was born in London in 1749. Ho went out in 1765 with a writer's appointment, in tho service of the East India Company, to Bombay ; accompanied in a civil capacity the troops sent to assist Hagonath Row, peshwa of the Mahrattas, in 1775 ; and, after a short visit to England for his health, received an appointment at Baroche, in Guzerat, from which he was promoted iu 1780 to be collector and chief resident of tho town and district of Dhuboy in the same province, then newly occupied by the company. On the cession
of that province to the Kahrattas in 1783, he returned to England, honoured by the affection and sincere regret of the natives who had been placed under his charge. Being in France in 1803, he was among the numerous ddtenus' confined at Verdun, but was released with his family in 1804 as a man of science by the mediation of tho French Institute, at the instance of our Royal Society. In 1806 Mr. Forbes published two volumes of letters, descriptive of his tour in Holland, Belgium, and France, with a more particular account of Verdun, and the treatment of the British detained there. In 1813 ho published the work by which he is now best known, 'Oriental3lemoirs, selected and abridged from a series of Familiar Letters, written during Seventeen Tears' residence in India,' &c., 4 vols. Ito, 1813. This work includes observations on those parts of Africa and America at which the author touched in his weer.' 'empires. The beauty of its decorations, more especially the coloured plates of animals and plants, from dewings made by the author, which have been rarely surpassed in spirit and beauty, obtained for it uncommon popularity. The text also, though bulky, was calculated to interest the publio at large, as containing, Intermixed with personal anecdote, an amusing mass of mircellaneons information concerning the Company's service, the history, manner., zoology, and antiquities of Hindustan, especially Gurerat, and other pre:mulcts on the western coast. Mr. Forbes died Auptat 1, 1819. lie was a Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian societies, and the Arcadian Society of Rome.