162 NATURAL SCIENCE [September 



proposal which naturally enough interested Steenstrup much, hut 

 met with some opposition, not only from the University, which 

 reasonably feared the increased pecuniary obligations involved in 

 such a scheme, but also from the majority of the keepers at the 

 Eoyal Museum. At last the battle was won by the bill of 1863, 

 which ordered the construction of a much wanted building in the 

 grounds of the University. It was finished and opened to the 

 public and to Science in 1870, and has since been the handsome, 

 but perhaps not sufficiently large home of zoological science with us, 

 constructed by the gifted architect, Chr. Hansen, whose genius was, 

 I believe, strongly fertilised by Steenstrup's ideas. Steenstrup was 

 not, as originally planned, the sole director of the new museum, but 

 by the election of the University the president of its council, 

 consisting of two keepers (inspectors), Schodte and Bernhardt, and 

 himself as administrators of its different departments. I shall not 

 here speak of the difficulties and painful controversies connected 

 with this organisation. Steenstrup retired from his position as 

 Professor of Zoology in the year 1885, after a painful period, 

 rendered more distressing through an unfortunate accident (a 

 fracture of collum femoris). I shall confine myself to a short 

 resume" of his chief scientific work from 1846 to 1885, the years 

 of his professorship. 



It was one of Steenstrup's characteristic features that he was 

 not only an excellent zoologist and a specialist in some of its 

 branches, but also a good geologist and botanist, capable of discuss- 

 ing many topics relating to different sciences ; and it may be 

 said, that he had a certain predilection for those points of 

 science, where its different sections meet and intercross. It will 

 therefore be easily understood that a man with his abilities and 

 constitution of mind must play an important part in a large 

 scientific community. It is, of course, a difficult task to classify 

 his works, which can often be referred to more than one of the 

 related sciences, and whose value may be judged from different 

 points of view. It will be understood that while his humble suc- 

 cessor in the chair of Zoology since 1885 may think himself 

 entitled to judge of his purely zoological work, he must speak some- 

 what more discreetly, notwithstanding the partly natural historical 

 character of Steenstrup's archaeological and related publications, on 

 this part of his literary work, and leave the ultimate judgment 

 to his historical and archaeological colleagues. 



One of Steenstrup's great services was, that he induced — what 

 was then a rarity — some of our excellent seafaring men of the navy 

 or of the merchant line, to devote their leisure hours to collecting 

 the animals of the seas through which they sailed, making careful 

 notes of the localities examined with their nets, and in this manner 



