HERLUF WINGE (1857-1923) ^ 



By Th. Moktensen 



LWith 1 plate] 



Herluf Winge was born March 19, 1857, the son of C. G. Winge, 

 an official in the Navy Department, and wife, born M0nster. From 

 his earliest boyhood he was, together with his brother Oluf, two 

 years his senior, deeply interested in zoology, especially in mammals 

 and birds, and, above all, in osteology. He made collections of all 

 sorts of bones and trained himself in their identification, and in 

 recognizing and correctly interpreting all sorts of fragments of 

 bones and teeth, a training which became of the greatest impor- 

 tance to the work of his manhood. He entered the University of 

 Copenhagen in 1874 (from the "Borgerdyd" school) and, of 

 course, at once eagerly devoted himself to a thorough study of 

 zoology. 



In 1881 he took his master's degree in zoology; from 1883-1885 

 he was a voluntary aid at the Zoological Museum; in 1885 he was 

 appointed assistant in Department I of the Museum, and in 1892 he 

 was nominated vice inspector of this department, a position in which 

 he remained until his death. He died on November 9, 1923, without 

 any preceding illness. He had, however, aged considerably during 

 his later years, especially after the accident he met with in the winter 

 of 1922, when he fell and broke an arm. But mentally he was in 

 full vigor to his last day and intensely occupied with a great work, 

 in which he intended to sum up the results of all his studies of mam- 

 mals, studies that had made up the main part of his life's work. 

 It was, perhaps, overexertion with this task which caused his death. 



Winge's life formed itself very regularly, without greater events, 

 except for the great affliction he suffered when his brother Oluf died 

 in 1889. He had always looked up to this brother as his ideal, and, 

 to the end, he cherished his memory with the greatest piety, declar- 

 ing himself to be only a faint reflection of him. Winge was a bachelor 

 and, at any rate in his later years, perhaps slightly eccentric. Whilst 

 in his younger years he enjoyed attending, in company with his 



1 English version of the memorial address delivered at a meeting of the R. Danish 

 Academy of Sciences, Copenhagen, Mar. 14, 1924, and published in its original form in 

 " Qversigt over det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Forhandlinger, June, 1923-May, 

 1924," Copenhagen, 1924. 



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