3S PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



(offered by fhe Liverpool Fish-Trade Association, but not 

 awarded) for an essay, ' On the Natural History and Cultivation 

 of the Sole.' 



He died at Tenby, 3rd September, 1895, aged 67; he was 

 elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society, 20th January, 1859. 



The Eight Hok. Thomas Henet Htjxlet was born at Ealing, 

 Middlesex, on Mav 4th, 1825. His father was a master in a 

 ]iublic school at Ealing. His early education was principally 

 obtained at home ; and for his training he was largely dependent 

 upon his own zeal and industry. 



On leaving school he de>'ired to become a mechanical engineer, 

 and the love of the mechanical and constructive thus early evi- 

 dent declared itself in his scientific work, in his preference for 

 morphology and physiology. 



In 1842 he entered the Charing Cross Hospital as a medical 

 student, and came under the influence o£ Wharton Jones. While 

 still a student he published a paper on the root-sheath of the 

 liair ; and in his subsequent career as a working naturalist he 

 published close upon 150 monographs and papers, which deal in 

 a masterly and most luminous manner with nearly all the great 

 groups of animals and with certain plants, one of the most note- 

 worthy being that published in the ' Proceedings ' of this Society 

 for 1849, in which be first sketched out the comparison between 

 the ectoderm and endoderm of the Coelenterata and the two 

 primary germ-layers of the Yertebrata. 



In 1S46 Huxley entered the Navy, and, after a short service in 

 Kelson's famous ship the ' Victory,' he became Assistant Surgeon 

 on boardH.M.S. 'Eattlesnake,' commissioned for a voyage of survey 

 in the Southern seas. After the inner route between the Barrier 

 Eeef and the coast of Australia and New Gruinea had been ex- 

 plored, the ship was set for a voyage of circumnavigation; and 

 Huxley, sending home important zoological monographs during 

 the voyage, found himself famous and welcomed as an authority 

 among zoologists on his return to England. His 'Anatomy and 

 Affinities of the Families of the Medusa ' and his monograph upon 

 the Morphology of the Cephalous Mollusca rank foremost among 

 his technical writings which date directly from this memorable 

 voyage. 



In 1853 Huxley retired from the Navy and succeeded Edward 

 Forbes as Professor of Natural History in the Eoyal School of 

 Mines, London, and, as Hon. Dean and Professor of Biology in 

 the Eoyal College of Science, he held the office until the day of 

 his death. As a teacher and lecturer he was facile princeps, 

 the deliberation of his utterances betokening a unique power of 

 thought and expression. In connection with his work as a 

 biologist, there appeared in succession bis ' Introduction to the 

 Classification of Animals,' one of the most masterly elementary 

 treatises on Zoology ever written; and the associated 'Lectures 



