LIFE OF ALBANY HANCOCK. XXV 



utility to his favourite sciences. He worked most perseveringly, 

 taking little rest or relaxation and insufficient exercise ; his 

 patience and zeal were indefatigable ; his observations were 

 frequently repeated and tested ; whilst his dissections were of 

 necessity performed with the subject under water and by the 

 aid of a lens, and at times required the use of the higher 

 powers of a valuable microscope presented to him by Lady 

 Armstrong. The drawings from his dissections were executed 

 with a delicacy and minute correctness which left nothing to 

 be desired, and the descriptions were always plain and modest, 

 but conscientiously exact, his sole aim being the representation 

 of the truth as it is in Nature. His sight was excellent, his 

 powers of observation and manipulation now perfected, his 

 generalizations enlightened, and, his mind having risen to its 

 full development, he succeeded in unravelling the intricacies 

 of the organization of the objects of his researches in so clear 

 a manner as to call forth the admiration of those who, either 

 in this country or abroad, had been educated to the study, and 

 had held the highest places in the ranks of the cultivators of 

 natural science. 



During and after the year 1858 he produced numerous 

 papers ; with Mr. Alder on the Nudibraiichiata, and also alone 

 on the Cephalopoda, on the Freshwater Bryozoa, and on Hydra . 

 In conjunction with Mr. Howse, in 1863, he classified and 

 described, in the ' Transactions of the Zoological Society/ a 

 collection of Indian Nudibranchs, sent by Walter Elliot, Esq. 

 With Mr. Howse he contributed valuable papers 011 the Fossil 

 Remains of the Marl-slate of Durham, and with Mr. Atthey 

 various descriptions of the Fossil Fauna of the Northumber- 

 land Coalfield. 



For these last additions to science the authors deserve high 

 credit, and the thanks of all Paleontologists, for the lucid 

 descriptions they have given of the remains of the ancient 

 fishes and reptiles submitted to their investigation, and the 

 satisfactory manner in which, with every modesty, they have 

 cleared away a cloud of errors and hasty generalizations of 

 previous writers, whereby the study of these interesting relics 

 of a past Fauna had been rendered unnecessarily complicated 

 and difficult. 



We now come, lastly, to notice the work on the Tunicata. Mr. 

 Hancock had, up to the autumn of 1873, completed about 

 two-thirds, and a portion of the remainder. Ill health over- 

 took him, and he deeply regretted that he was compelled to 

 abandon the valuable work which he so much loved, and which 

 he had so greatly illustrated, when he was within two years of 

 the time when he expected to be able to bring it to a conclusion. 



