92 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



taste for natural history which he pursued to the last with undi- 

 minished ardour. He became Suppleant to Cuvier at the Jardin des 

 Plantes and at the College de France, and was soon afterwards 

 named Professeur-Adjoint of Zoology, Anatomy and Comparative 

 Physiology, at the Faculte des Sciences. In 1810 he took the de- 

 gree of Doctor of Medicine; in 1825 he was elected a Member of 

 the Institute ; and on the death of Cuvier, in 1831, he succeeded to 

 the Chair of Comparative Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes. 

 During his long career he published a multitude of memoirs and 

 separate works, which have contributed largely to the progress of 

 zoological science. His earlier memoirs appeared in the ' Journal 

 de Physique,' in the ' Journal de la Societe Philomathique,' and in 

 the ' Annales ' and ' Memoires du Museum,' and embrace the study 

 of a great number of animals of almost every class. Of his separate 

 works the most important are his ' Prodrome d'une Nouvelle Dis- 

 tribution Systematique du Regne Animal,' 1816; ' Principes de 

 I'Anatomie Comparee," 1822; 'Manuel de Malacologie et de Con- 

 chyliologie,' 1S26; and ' Osteographie Comparee,' a magnificent 

 work not yet completed. In comparative anatomy he seems to have 

 taken for his model Vicq-d'Azir, several of whose unfinished works 

 he completed ; and his views, always more or less original, and not 

 unfrequently involving bold hypotheses, indicate a lively imagination 

 as well as the possession of extensive knowledge of his subject. All 

 those who have attended his lectures bear testimony to the copious 

 flow of his ideas, to which a clear and lucid mode of expression gave 

 the most agreeable form, and which were further illustrated by his 

 ready use of the pencil, all contributing to render his class extremely 

 popular. He was found dead at one of the stations of the Paris and 

 Rouen Railway on the night of the 1st of May, while on his way to 

 England, which he had several times visited. He became a Foreign 

 Member of the Linnean Society in 1827, and was also on the Foreign 

 List of the Royal Society, to which he was elected in 1832. 



Karl Sigisinund Kunth was born in Leipzig on the 18th of June 

 1788, and educated until the age of sixteen in the free school of his 

 native city, where he exhibited an early inclination towards natural 

 history, and acquired the protection and favour of the celebrated 

 anatomist Rosenmiiller, who afforded him opportunities of improve- 

 ment as an anatomical draughtsman. In 1805 he entered the Col- 

 lege of St. Thomas ; but the death of his father having deprived 

 him of the means of pursuing his studies, he obtained in 1806, 

 through the influence of an uncle, an appointment in the naval ad- 

 ministration at Berlin. Averse, however, to so mechanical an em- 



