Were} 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
and philosophical. What first led him to devote so large a portion of his time to the 
fossil world I am not called upon to notice: but years before I knew his name, he had 
entered (with an ardour which has never since abated) on that great field of Paleontology 
which spreads itself into every department of organic nature; and when I first saw 
him (in 1841) he had nearly completed his volume on the Carboniferous Fossils of Ireland. 
His Irish works put him in the front rank of British palaontologists. In one respect 
however they fell short of his wishes; for, in the systematic description of each species, he 
was anxious that every known Irish locality should have been enumerated, (on the model 
afterwards happily adopted in the Cambridge work); but his suggestions on this point were 
not acted on. 
When my friend formed his first engagement with this University, he came amongst us 
young indeed in look; but, even then, a veteran in Paleontology. He was well trained 
and ready for the task he had undertaken; and far better stored with a knowledge of 
the foreign standard works on Paleontology than any man with whom I had before conversed. 
This great advantage he partly owed to his previous residence in Dublin, which gave him 
access to its public libraries; and it was an advantage which he never afterwards let slip 
during the years that he laboured in our Museum under the public library of the University. 
Great knowledge does not, however, necessarily imply great skill in the use of it; 
and of my friend’s skill in the systematic classifications and specific descriptions of the 
following work the scientific world is the only judge; and to that judge I resign it, with 
sentiments, I might almost say, of paternal interest. 
On some points I do, however, profess myself a good judge of my friend’s labours; 
because I have means of information respecting them which can hardly be possessed, to 
a like extent, by any other person. He is gifted with very acute senses, which have been 
sharpened by long-continued scientific use; and these physical qualities are combined 
with great knowledge, and so happy a memory that the species submitted to his examina- 
tion seemed hardly tess present to his eye than the kindred species about which he had 
only read. Hence his knowledge seemed to be ever at hand for immediate use when the 
occasion called for it. With this ready and productive power, he had, by a long and 
hard training, acquired a clear perception of the bearing of one part of organic nature 
upon another, and a grasp of the highest philosophical requirements of natural history. 
Nor is it wide of my present purpose, or unconnected with the credit of the following 
work to declare, after an intercourse the most fraxk and confidential, and continued, without 
a moment’s abatement of mutual good-will, for nearly eight years, that in the list of those 
whom I have rejoiced to call my friends there has not been one more single-minded, more 
truth-loving and honourable, than Professor M'Coy. To say that he was indifferent to his 
scientific reputation would not be true, and if true would be very little to his credit; but 
upon this I would dare to stake my credit and happiness among my friends, that he has 
never sought for honour by taking to himself one atom of credit which was due to another 
son of science. 
