162 NATURAL SCIENCE [September 
proposal which naturally enough interested Steenstrup much, but 
met with some opposition, not only from the University, which 
reasonably feared the increased pecuniary obligations involved in 
such a scheme, but also from the majority of the keepers at the 
Royal Museum. At last the battle was won by the bill of 1865, 
which ordered the construction of a much wanted building in the 
grounds of the University. It was finished and opened to the 
public and to Science in 1870, and has since been the handsome, 
but perhaps not sufficiently large home of zoological science with us, 
constructed by the gifted architect, Chr. Hansen, whose genius was, 
I believe, strongly fertilised by Steenstrup’s ideas. Steenstrup was 
not, as originally planned, the sole director of the new museum, but 
by the election of the University the president of its council, 
consisting of two keepers (inspectors), Schodte and Reinhardt, and 
himself as administrators of its different departments. I shall not 
here speak of the difficulties and painful controversies connected 
with this organisation. Steenstrup retired from his position as 
Professor of Zoology in the year 1885, after a painful period, 
rendered more distressing through an unfortunate accident (a 
fracture of collum femoris). I shall confine myself to a short 
resumé of his chief scientific work from 1846 to 1885, the years 
of his professorship. 
It was one of Steenstrup’s characteristic features that he was 
not only an excellent zoologist and a specialist in some of its 
branches, but also a good geologist and botanist, capable of discuss- 
ing many topics relating to different sciences; and it may be 
said, that he had a certain predilection for those points of — 
science, where its different sections meet and intercross. It will 
therefore be easily understood that a man with his abilities and 
constitution of mind must play an important part in a large 
scientific community. It is, of course, a difficult task to classify 
his works, which can often be referred to more than one of the 
related sciences, and whose value may be judged from different 
points of view. It will be understood that while his humble suc- 
cessor in the chair of Zoology since 1885 may think himself 
entitled to judge of his purely zoological work, he must speak some- 
what more discreetly, notwithstanding the partly natural historical 
character of Steenstrup’s archaeological and related publications, on 
this part of his literary work, and leave the ultimate judgment 
to his historical and archaeological colleagues. 
One of Steenstrup’s great services was, that he induced—what - 
was then a rarity—some of our excellent seafaring men of the navy 
or of the merchant line, to devote their leisure hours to collecting 
the animals of the seas through which they sailed, making careful 
notes of the localities examined with their nets, and in this manner 
