18 NATURAL VSGUEN GE. Jan., 
after label calls to mind that Owen first studied and described the 
remains exhibited, and though he was not free from the errors of the 
early investigators, and was very jealous of his contemporaries, his 
triumphs will linger in our memories longer than his weaknesses or 
mistakes. 
Few students realise the magnitude of Owen’s work, and it is 
only those who search in many fields that can comprehend the genius. 
of the man who has now passed to his rest. 
C. Davies SHERBORN. 
II.—SIR RICHARD OWEN’S HYPOTHESES. 
Iris now more than sixty years since the Zoological Society 
published the earliest of those anatomical papers on the Anthropoid 
Apes, among the later of which was the first thorough and 
detailed description of the skulls of the Chimpanzee and Gorilla. 
These, together with skilful restorations of the extinct birds of New 
Zealand and many other anatomical papers well-known to zoologists,, 
will cause the name of Owen long to live in the grateful memory of all 
men who have the cause of Natural Science at heart. It seems, indeed, 
that the fame of our veteran Comparative Anatomist is likely rather 
to augment than decline. As time goes on and the disputes which 
formerly arose about the precise definition of ‘‘ corpus callosum,” and 
the presence of the “hippocampus minor ” fade from memory, the 
many merits of the greatest English Zoologist of the first half of the 
nineteenth century will, we think, be more and more generally 
recognised. The esteem in which he has continued to be held during 
recent years is clearly shown by the award to him by the Council of 
the Linnean Society of their first Zoological Medal. 
However Sir Richard Owen may in some respects have laid him- 
self open to criticism, he has certainly been the victim of some 
injustice. It may be that a sense of such unfairness had its influence 
in that award to him of the Linnean Medal to which we have just 
referred. 
This injustice mainly concerns some of his fascinating hypotheses 
relating to the essential nature of the processes of generation and 
repair, and concerning certain archetypal principles of our own bodily 
structure which he first made familiar in England. 
We well recollect a brilliant lecture given at the College of 
Surgeons concerning ‘‘ virgin reproduction,” to which process, so far 
as we are aware, Professor Owen first applied the term Partheno- 
genesis. This lecture, revised and enlarged, was subsequently 
published. It is with respect to this that a great injustice has been 
committed. It has been, no doubt, unwittingly committed by men 
who, while lauding or criticising Professor Weismann for his more 
1 On Parthenogenesis. London: John Van Voorst, 1849. 
