[ 120 ] 26 



for making rapid progress in this, as in every other branch of natural 

 history, is to be largely supplied with the most common things. Hunting 

 for varieties kills the spirit of deep investigation Series of skeletons, 

 brains, hearts, intestines, sexual organs, skins, &c., &c,, of the same 

 common animals in all ages, for the different classes, would fully answer the 

 purpose. Making such collections, for instance, for the class mammalia 

 only from thecal or dog, the rabbit, the bat, the mole, the hog, the horse, 

 the sheep, goat, or cow, the opossum, Avould be quite sufhcient. For 

 birds, from a hawk, a pigeon, a hen, a heron, a duck, a raven or crow, a fly- 

 catcher, a sparrow,a woodpecker, a humming-bird, and a parrot, would be 

 enough. For reptiles, from a turtle, a lizard, a snake, a salamander, and a 

 frog. For fishes, from a shark, a skate, a lamprey eel, &c., ^c. You see 

 nothing rare, but complete series of anatomical preparations of young in 

 different stages of growth, and also complete series of these young pre- 

 served whole for zoological comparison. An appeal should be made 

 throughout the country to furnish materials. A stay of a few weeks in one 

 of the great centres, where hundreds of thousands of pigs are killed, would 

 afford invaluable materials to clear up the history of their growth, and to 

 establish the true relations between living and fossil pachyderms — nay, 

 perhaps give us -the most correct outlines of those types which have be- 

 come extinct, and the forms of which are perhaps only preserved in our 

 days in some transient state of our living species. I entertain, indeed, 

 no doubt about the practicability of drawing correct figures of the fossil 

 palentherium, anoplotherium, &c., from the embryos of our hogs and 

 horses. 



"There is a third point to which I would call your attention. It has 

 struck me that the reason why comparative anatomy is so much neglected. 

 in this country, and scarcely at all studied by the young physicians, whilst 

 in Germany it is made the foundation of all medical studies, is to be 

 attributed to the fact that there is no text-book, no atlas of anatomical 

 plates, made upon materials which can be obtained on this continent, and 

 hence the impossibility for the beginner to make use of the works, even the 

 best treatises, which we now possess. A chemical, philosophical, astro- 

 nomical, mineralogical or geological text-book, and the necessary appa- 

 ratus for studying the phenomena of inorganic nature, can be and liave been 

 imported, and found useful; as the laws which govern them are not only the 

 same, but the materials themselves thus concerned are identical. Not so 

 with animals and plants. Let a medical student in this country open 

 Cuvier's wonderful papers upon the anatomy of molluscs, which have 

 for nearly half a century been the models offered to our students for imi- 

 tation, and he will not find one single identical species here for examina- 

 tion or comparison. All the investigations which have most directly con- 

 tributed to the advancement of comparative anatomy and physiology 

 within tlie last twenty years have been made upon animals which do not 

 occur upon this continent, and I do not see how American students in 

 general can be induced to take part in this movement unless they are pro- 

 vided with a set of illustrations resting upon native animals, easily ob- 

 tained anywhere." 



