OBITUARIES 
CHARLES HERBERT HURST 
BorN SEPTEMBER 1855. DiED May 1898 
Dr C. H. Hurst was an alumnus of the Manchester Grammar School, 
where he gave an indication of his future bent by attaining a high 
position on the science side. After an interval spent in business he 
entered the Royal College of Science under Professor Huxley, and in 
1881 was bracketed equal with his friend Dr John Beard at the head 
of the list in biology. In the same year he entered the Owens 
College as a student, and in 1883 was appointed demonstrator 
and assistant lecturer in this institution under the late Prof. Milnes 
Marshall. 
He filled this position for more than eleven years, and earned the 
gratitude of the students by his clear and vigorous teaching and by 
his constant readiness to assist all who were in earnest in their 
studies. In 1895 he left the Owens College, much to the regret 
of his colleagues, in order to fill a similar post in the Royal College 
of Science, Dublin. 
Hurst’s published writings are not numerous. II] health prevented 
him from doing much more than the engrossing nature of his college 
duties demanded. His most important work was probably his share 
in the production of the “Junior Course of Practical Zoology,” which 
has made the names of “Marshall and Hurst” household words 
wherever biology is studied. Many of the drawings are from his 
pencil, for he was an excellent draughtsman ; and almost the whole 
work was done by both authors, very few paragraphs being written 
by either alone. 
In 1889 he took advantage of a prolonged leave of absence to 
study in Leipsic under Leuckart, where he made an interesting 
addition to our knowledge of the developmental history of Culex, for 
which he was awarded the degree of Ph.D. In 1891 he undertook 
a new line of zoological work, in the shape of a systematic criticism 
of Biological Theory. The result of this was a series of papers 
published in Natural Science, in which many popular and orthodox 
views were attacked in a trenchant and unsparing manner, which, 
though it could cause no offence to those who knew the man and his 
honesty of purpose, was undoubtedly misunderstood by some who 
were not personally acquainted with him. Space forbids entering 
in detail into these papers individually ; it must suffice to mention 
as examples “The Nature of Heredity” (Nat. Scz., vol. 1.), “The 
Function of Tentaculocysts” (Wat. Sci., vol. ii.), “The Recapitulation 
Theory,” and the series of papers on Archaeopteryx, and to say that 
they contain many observations of force and justice, though some of 
