152 STR W. H. FLOWER [AUGUST 
conferred upon him respectively by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge ; 
and he was also the recipient of those of D.Sc. and Ph.D. So far back as 1851 
he became a Fellow of the Zoological Society, of which body he was elected 
president in 1879—an office he held at the time of his death. From 1883 till 
1885, Sir Wilham also occupied the presidential chair of the Anthropological 
Institute ; while in 1887 he served in the same capacity at the meeting of the 
British Association, having presided over the section of Biology at the meeting 
of 1877, and that of Anthropology in 1881. He was also President of the 
section of Anatomy at the International Medical Congress at its London 
meeting in 1881; and it was solely due to ill-health that he was prevented 
from presiding over the International Congress of Zoology held last year at 
Cambridge. Both the Geological and the Linnean Societies of London claimed 
Sir William as a Fellow. 
As examples of his devotion to his own work, it may be mentioned that it 
is within the knowledge of the present writer, that Sir William refused both 
the Presidency of the Royal Society, and a seat in the Senatus of London 
University (in succession to Huxley), on the ground that they would interfere 
with his official duties. 
From his very earliest days Sir William Flower displayed a marked love 
and inclination towards natural history studies ; and im his last work, ‘‘ Essays 
on Museums” (which is a collection of articles compiled while incapacitated by 
illness from more severe labours), he takes the public into his confidence to 
tell them how he first began collecting and arranging zoological specimens in 
early boyhood. With his appointment to the Museum of the College of 
Surgeons, opportunities for cultivating that branch of zoological science he 
loved best, namely, the anatomy and classification of mammals (inclusive of 
man), were abundant, and good use was made of them. Nearly every portion 
of the osteological collection of the College still bears the impress of his work ; 
the series of human skulls and skeletons having been vastly increased during his 
tenure of office. 
A permanent record of his zeal in augmenting and classifying the Hunterian 
collection is afforded by the two volumes of ‘ Catalogues” compiled by him, 
with the assistance of Dr. Garson, during his tenure of office ; one of these, 
published in 1879, being devoted to the osteology of man, while the second 
(1884) treats of that of other mammals. 
During his tenure of the Hunterian chair, Professor Flower regularly 
delivered the annual course of lectures ; the substance of the first series of these 
being expanded into the now well-known ‘Introduction to the Osteology of 
the Mammalia,” the first edition of which appeared in 1870, and the third 
(revised with the assistance of Dr. H. Gadow) in 1885. 
For several years after his appointment to the British Museum, Sir 
William’s attention (in addition to the routine work of his office) was largely 
occupied with the formation and arrangement of the “ Index Museum,” which 
now occupies the bays on the sides of the central hall; while he was also 
engaged with the acquisition and mounting of the interesting specimens ex- 
hibited in the cases standing in the hall itself. When, however, the office of 
Keeper of the Zoological Department was held by him conjointly with the 
Directorship, Sir William in due course determined to rearrange at least the 
Vertebrate Galleries of the Museum according to his own ideas—a work which 
is still in progress. As is well known, it was his idea that no specimens should 
be exhibited in a Museum to the public which do not actually teach something; 
and he was above all urgent as to the necessity of explanatory labels, which he 
regarded as of almost more importance than the specimens themselves. The 
results of his plan are now exhibited in the Mammal and Bird Galleries. 
Although a diligent student of the structure of mammals belonging to all 
orders, Sir Williain’s special favourites were undoubtedly man on the one hand 
and whales and dolphins on the other. And his last efforts during his tenure 
