1899] GEORGE JAMES ALLMAN 75 



fertile pen produced at the time, was that on the Anatomy and Physiology of 

 Cordylophora, in which he gave an indication of his masterly treatment of the 

 Tubularian Hydroids. When the somewhat sudden and lamented death of 

 Edward Forbes took place, in the midst of his enthusiastic labours in his new sphere 

 of action in the University of Edinburgh — surrounded as he was by congenial 

 colleagues, and with a great future before him, Dr. Allman had sufficient 

 influence in 1885 to obtain the appointment. Though, at first, opinions as to 

 the successor of the brilliant Forbes were divided, yet Allman, by the publica- 

 tion of his volume on the Fresh-Water Polyzoa (Ray Society, 1856), a model 

 of its kind in text and illustrations, at once gained support and disarmed 

 criticism. His genial and courteous bearing, and the eloquence he displayed 

 in his lecture-room, made his courses on Natural History exceedingly 

 popular, and he, besides, occasionally conducted dredging excursions on 

 Saturdays in the Forth with his students, a steam vessel being hired at Leith 

 for this purpose. He was ever ready to explain and instruct as the dredge or otter- 

 trawl came up, and many a young student of the " fifties " must retain pleasant 

 memories of these delightful expeditions. Xor were his sympathies — with those 

 who retired from active service as the trawl settled into action — more likely to be 

 forgotten. Moreover, he devoted a short part of the next lecture to the most 

 instructive forms met with in the excursion, illustrating his remarks by sketches 

 on the blackboard. No professor, indeed, was more welcomed by the student of 

 the day, and many still recall his once familiar figure as he hastened — not much 

 before time — from Manor Place through the Grassmarket to the high class 

 room in the Old University. Besides his University and more purely zoological 

 work, he took much interest in the Scottish Fisheries, and was appointed a 

 Commissioner to inquire into various subjects connected with the department. 

 One of them was the investigation, along with Prof. Lyon Playfair, of the 

 spawning-ground of the herring at the " Old Hake," near Crail. While 

 pursuing this inquiry, he hatched the eggs of the herring quite easily in a 

 .simple apparatus. He also took an active part in transferring the zoological 

 collections of the Old University Museum (so dear to many an old student) 

 to their new quarters in the Museum of Science and Art. At the meetings 

 of the Royal Society in Edinburgh he worthily upheld the traditions of 

 the chair of Walker, Jamieson, and Forbes, his wide and accurate zoological 

 knowledge and his fluent and graceful style combining to render him as 

 trenchant as agreeable. Not a few regretted his somewhat early retirement 

 from a post in which he was so fitted to distinguish himself, but considerations 

 of health compelled him to resign his chair in 1870. 



The comparative leisure which he enjoyed after his departure from Edin- 

 burgh enabled him to devote his whole energies to his favourite studies, while 

 also advancing the general interests of science by his able Presidency of the 

 Linnean Society, and by his occupation of the Presidential Chair of the British 

 Association at Sheffield in 1879. 



As a zoologist Prof. Allman brought to bear on his subject a cultured 

 intellect, keen observation, philosophic spirit, and sound deduction, while his 

 gifts in artistic delineation of the beautiful forms to which he specially devoted 

 himself give his works a solidity and a charm all their own. These features, 

 for instance, are prominent in his beautiful monograph of the Tubularian 

 Hydroids for the Ray Society (1871-72), a work at once an honour to British 

 zoology and an enduring monument to the talents and refined artistic touch of 

 a master in the department. Marine zoology, indeed, has lost in him its fore- 

 most investigator and its most dignified expounder in our country. Himself a 

 graduate in medicine, he fully appreciated, as shown in his introductory lecture in 

 Edinburgh, the brotherhood of zoology and medicine, a feature the late Univer- 

 sities (Scotland) Commissioners have apparently misunderstood. 



Of a somewhat delicate constitution, he shrank from those combats in which 

 men like Prof. Huxley flourish, but in general society there were few so genial 



