1901.] Anmial Report. '41 



Dr. Anderson was bovn on the 4tli October, 1 883, and graduated 

 M.D. in the Unversity of Edinburgh in 18G1, his graduation thesis 

 which was entitled " Contributions to Zoology," indicating the natural 

 bent of his mind. 



Before this lie had ah'eady carried out some successful dredging 

 operations off the coast of Scotland, and about this time he initiated 

 his long series of Zoological publications with two papers On an Ap- 

 parently Neio Form of Hvlothuria, and On the Anatomy of Sacculina, 

 which appeared in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for 

 1862. 



After holding the Professorship of Natural Science in the Free 

 Church College at Edinburgh for two years, he came to Calcutta, where 

 his name is pei'mauently associated, monumenftim aere perennius, with 

 the foundation of the Indian Museum and with the origins of our 

 zoological knowledge of Upper Burma and Mergui. 



He will also be remembered as one of the earliest advocates of a 

 Zoological Garden for Calcutta, and as one of the experts who greatly 

 assisted in giving shape to that Institution when it was stai^ted. 



Dr. W. T. Blanford, than whom there is no one more competent to 

 speak at first hand, has already, in " Nature," given a review of his 

 scientific work, from which, the following paragraphs are extracted: — 



" His arrival in Calcutta was at a fortunate time. The Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal had gradually come into the possession of a lai-ge 

 collection, not only of the archjeological remains, manuscripts, coins 

 and similar objects, for the study of which the Society was originally 

 established, but also of zoological and geological specimens in large 

 numbers. In the course of the preceding quarter of a century the 

 collections had inci'eased, chiefly through the work of Edward Blyth, 

 the curator, until the Society's premises were crowded, and the Society's 

 funds no longer sutticed for the proper preservation and exhibition of 

 the specimens collected. After long negotiations, interrupted by the 

 disturbances of 1857, arrangements were completed in 1864 by which 

 the archa3ological and zoological collections of the Society (the geoloci- 

 cal specimens had been previously transferred) were taken over by the 

 Government of India, Avho undertook to build a new museum in Cal- 

 cutta, of which tlie Society's collections would form the nucleus. The 

 trustees appointed by the Government to manage the new museum 

 asked the Secretaiy of State for India to select a curator, and Dr. J. 

 Anderson was nominated for the post early in 1865. His status was 

 changed, a few years later, to that of superintendent of tlie museum, 

 and in addition to his museum work he became Professor, of Compara- 

 tive Anatomy at the Medical College, Calcutta. He held both oihces" 

 until his retirement from India in J 886. 



