Abstract
WHILE many can speak of Dr. F. E. Beddard's zoological work in general, there must be few who knew his special workon the Oligoch2eta so well as myself. For upwards of a quatter of a century we were in constant correspondence, exchanging papers, specimens or notes. It is forty years since he began to publish on the subject of annelids. Alongside of his professional work he had already spent at least ten years on the oligoch before his magnum opus was issued by the Clarendon Press (“A Monograph of the Order Oligochæta” 1895). In the bibliography appended to this work no fewer than eighty-five items are recorded as his own, while Benham and Friend are each credited with twenty. Beddard did not profess to pay special attention to the British annelids, and very few of the species described in his monograph have indications that they may be found in Great Britain. His own material came from e part of the globe, but the tropical worms were perhaps those he knew best. What he did for Asia in particular largely paved the way for the splendid work which Stephenson has done and is still doing. When I took up the work in 1890, Beddard, together with Dr. Benham, gave me every possible help; and as my work on British annelids, and particu larly that on the Enchytræids, grew, he regarded that department as mine, and left me an open field. H was ever ready to recognise the work of others, and never looked askance at one who worked as an amateur in the provinces with all the odds against him.
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FRIEND, H. [Obituaries]. Nature 116, 216 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116216a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116216a0