OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 9 



skeletons, brains, and in other particulars, from fishes proper. 

 Next come the genuine Ganoids, with their reptilian affin- 

 ities. The lamprey-eel is the only type which undergoes a 

 metamorphosis in passing from the young to the adult con- 

 dition. The four classes, then, among fishes are the Sela- 

 chians, the Ganoids, Fishes proper, and Myzonts. Professor 

 Agassiz explained how the position of the fins cannot be 

 relied on as a character for the formation of natural groups. 

 The sturgeons, loricarians, and cat-fish, he said, form a 

 natural group, based on similarity of structure of the opercu- 

 lum and upper jaw, characters which he considered of more 

 importance than the muscular bulbus of the aorta. These 

 families are linked together also by the peculiar arrangement 

 of the lateral line and the dorsal and abdominal shields. 



Professor C. C. Felton announced the decease of a distin- 

 guished Associate Fellow of the Academy, Thomas Craw- 

 ford, as follows : — 



" I rise to announce the death of a Fellow of this Society, Thomas 

 Crawford, the American sculptor. 



" It is but a year since Mr. Crawford returned to Rome from a visit 

 to the United States, leaving his family with their relatives. He was 

 then apparently in full health, in the highest spirits, looking forward to 

 future achievements ; — already possessed of fame and fortune, domes- 

 tic happiness, the love and admiration of friends, and of all else that 

 makes the present delightful, and the prospect of the future brilliant 

 and enchanting to a noble spirit. It is but a few days since his colos- 

 sal bronze statue of Washington was landed at Richmond, and drawn 

 by shouting and enthusiastic multitudes to the place of its destination, 

 up the Capitol Hill of that beautiful city. Last Saturday the lifeless 

 body of the great artist was borne by the pious hands of silent and 

 sorrowing friends, to its final resting-place in Greenwood Cemetery. 



"Thomas Crawford was born in New York, on the 22d of March, 

 1813. Early in life he showed, amidst the hardships of poverty, 

 the irresistible promptings of a natural genius for sculpture, in 

 which he was destined to gain a world-wide renown. In 1835 he 

 waS' enabled to go to Rome, the true school for the sculptor, and there, 

 with hopeful courage and manly heart, he dedicated his studious nights 



VOL. IV. 2 



