LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. X¢lil 
Professor ; and it is understood that he has also made provision for 
the endowment of a keepership for the engravings, as well as for 
annual additions both to his entomological and art-collections. 
Robert Charles Hurst, Esq., M.R.C.S.E., was a medical prac- 
titioner at Bedford. He was elected into the Society on the 17th 
January, 1861, and died almost on the anniversary of his election, 
on the 16th January last, at a comparatively early age. 
John Thomas Quekett, Esq., F.R.S., was the fourth son of the 
Head Master of the Langport Grammar School, where he received 
his elementary education. At the early age of sixteen he showed 
the bent of his mind, and an earnest of his future eminence as a 
microscopist and zealous cultivator of science, by giving a course of 
lectures on microscopic subjects, illustrated by diagrams and a mi- 
croscope of his own construction, the materials of this instrument 
being furnished by a common roasting-jack, a lady’s old-fashioned 
parasol, and some pieces of brass purchased at a neighbouring marine- 
store shop, and fashioned by himself. He afterwards repaired to 
London and was apprenticed to his brother, the late Edwin Quekett, 
who was at that time Lecturer on Botany.at the London Hospital 
Medical School ; and at this institution he was also entered a student. 
On the due completion of his studies, he became a Licentiate of the 
Apothecaries’ Company and Member cf the Royal College of Surgeons. 
The College having just then established a studentship in human and 
comparative anatomy, Mr. Quekett competed for the appointment, 
and was unanimously elected ; and he immediately set to work and 
formed a most extensive and valuable collection of microscopic pre- 
parations, which was afterwards purchased by the Council of the 
College, where it forms the chief part of the “‘ Histological Series of 
the Museum ”—a collection consisting of preparations of the elemen- 
tary tissues, both healthy and morbid, of animals and plants, adapted 
to illustrate the results and uses of microscopical investigation. 
In 1844, in pursuance of the object the college had in view in ac- 
quiring this valuable collection, Mr. Quekett was appointed to de- 
liver an annual course of demonstrations with a view to its exhibition 
and connected description. A descriptive and illustrated catalogue 
of the collection, subsequently prepared by Mr. Quekett, under the 
superintendance of the Museum Committee, and of which the first 
volume was published in 1850, forms a striking monument of 
his unwearied industry and great skill as a histologist and micro- 
scopist. 
At the conclusion of the period for which the studentship was 
tenable, viz. three years, Mr. Quekett was appointed Assistant Con- 
LINN. PROC.—VOL. VI. h 
