LUnfEi-ir SOCIETY OP LOUDON. 5 I 



among tbose ot specialists in this department, while to the lay 

 mind he will remain famous as the man who unravelled the 

 mystery of the ' Sea Monk ' (Architeuthis). In other depart- 

 ments of marine zoology he has left a mark upon time. His 

 work upon the hectocotylus, the marine annelids, crustaceans, 

 and fishes, his observations and novel ideas concerning the 

 translocation of the eyes in the flat-fishes, are all of prime im- 

 portance ; and equally interesting historically is perhaps the ftict 

 that by early using bis influence with mariners, inducing them 

 to utilize their leisure hours in collecting and making notes and 

 systematic observations upon the surface-fauna, he stands out 

 a pioneer in oceanology, and what we now term ' plankton ' 

 exploration. Nor was he unwilling to risk reform ; as in his 

 novel interpretation of the Brachiopoda, and his argument that 

 the '• Operculate Corals " may be non-Anthozoa and perhaps 

 allied even to these, if not to the Serpulidae or Hippuritidae. 

 But while the bulk of his work on the Zoological side dealt with 

 the Invertebrata, apart from his investigations upon the mor- 

 phology of fishes, we find him during his residence in Soroe 

 making important observations upon the Ranidap, which today 

 receive expression in our synonymy; and while reptiles fell within 

 his palaeontological studies, and mammals within botli these and 

 his strictly zoological, the migration of birds furnished material 

 for one of two prize essays during the forties and the early part 

 of bis career. 



In 1846, on the deatb of the elder Eeinhardt, Steenstrup 

 became Professor of Zoology at the University of Copenhagen, 

 and Director of its Zoological Museum. While there he took a 

 leading part in the work of the Boyal Society of Science, of which 

 he was Secretary, and of the Natural History Society, refusing 

 the Presidentship of the former and the Rectorship of the Uni- 

 versity in order the better to devote himself to pure science and 

 professorial duties. He was, in 1848, with Forchammer, put in 

 command of the " Eoyal Natural History Museum," which, after 

 years of turmoil and official opposition, he was mainly successful 

 in replacing in the building which now stands in the grounds of 

 the University, a monument to his memory. 



Steenstrup, as friend, teacher, and worker, is said by those 

 who knew him to have realized the very ideal of human desires. 

 He was honoured by the highest distinctions which his country 

 could confer, as with others by the leading scientific bodies of 

 Berlin, Christiania, London, Paris, and Stockholm. Equally 

 profound as zoologist, botanist, and geologist, as historian, 

 antiquarian, archaeologist, a man of mark, he has set us a splendid 

 example of excellence and of prolonged and disinterested de- 

 votion to science for its own sake, and with his decease a link 

 with the historic past has been lost. 



He was elected a Foreign Member of the Eoyal Society in 

 1863, of the Linnean on 5th May, 1864, and of the Zoological in 

 1879, and died at Copenhagen, 20th June, 1897, aged 84. 



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