68 PEOCEEDIXGS OF THE 



Anthropological lostitute and elsewhere, till the year 1895, which' 

 marked the date of his concluding Anthropological memoir, ' On. 

 the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jamaica.' His record at the Eoyal 

 College of Surgeons was one continued success, the result of 

 exceptional administrative capacity and skill, and it placed him in 

 the front rank of Museum Curators. Ever at his post, nervously 

 anxious lest the best should not have been done, communicative,, 

 genial, and ever ready to receive and encourage the visitor and those 

 who would make good use of the collections, he proved himself, as 

 he has been termed, the " Prince of Museum Directors." 



In 1884 Flower was called to succeed Owen in the Directorship 

 of the British Museum of Natural History at (South Kensington ;, 

 and here his ingenuity and skill in matters of Museum technique 

 found new lines for its development : in the formation of the ideal 

 Index-Collection, which remains a masterly achievement of its kind. 

 Rejecting the scheme of Owen, which would have devoted one 

 bay to Man, another to perhaps the whole of the Invertebrata,. 

 Flower began with an organological series, viz., the beautiful 

 collection of specimens illustrating the Mammalian dentition, 

 which is to-day as he left it. Of the success of the undertalung 

 so far as he lived to carry it out, aided by the two competent 

 assistants he in turn em.ployed, it is impossible to speak too 

 highly. Unique in its conception, it has served as a prototype 

 of other collections of like order, and has been of inestimable 

 value to the student. It cannot be too deeply regretted that 

 he did not live to finish the series, for had he done so and 

 left it a completed whole, it must have remained a permanent 

 and most fitting monument to his memory ; and one could have 

 pictured to the mind the Collection, when completed, backed by 

 an appropriate inscription akin to that which surmounts the 

 entrance to St. Paul's Cathedral, calling upon the spectator to 

 look round, would he perceive the achievement of a master hand. 

 Owing to its unfinished state, it would seem that this Collection 

 will in course of time become more or less merged in the 

 general mass of material our National storehouse contains ; but 

 there are things more complete in themselves that Flower 

 achieved, which must stand as he left them. We refer to 

 the Cases in the Central Hall, each illustrating the working of 

 one principle in organic nature, and the Whale-room, with its 

 ponderous skeletons mounted in reproductions of half-skins, in 

 the manner so successfully introduced by him. These constitute 

 a lasting memorial to his labours, more valuable and significant 

 than any which could be raised by his friends. And further, 

 in all parts of the Museum, specimens, stands, labels, testify to 

 his wise discretion, his aesthetic taste, and power of gauging the 

 public mind. 



Author of a long series of memoirs, papers, and cyclopaedic 

 articles, as a writer for both the public and the student, he 

 was successful because sympathetic. His 'Osteology of the 

 Mammalia,' his book on the Horse, his Manual, in conjunction 



