1879] 'Theodore Gill 



The first was taken by John Doe at Medicine Bow, 

 April 12, 1890, and is numbered 25001 on the Na- 

 tional Museum records/ 5 Thus he would always 

 have it possible for others to distinguish (by refer- 

 ence to the actual material on which one based an 

 opinion) between what one really knew and what 

 one only surmised. He was a man of large stature, 

 heavily built, always serene and especially interested 

 in cooperation as distinguished from rivalry in 

 scientific work. 



Dr. Theodore Gill was for most of his life a vol- Theodore 

 unteer assistant in the Smithsonian, where he was GlU 

 assigned special rooms. Giving the greater part of 

 his time to the study of fishes, or rather to what 

 others had written of fishes, he was also a high 

 authority on mollusks and mammals. Specimens he 

 did not care to handle except in the form of dry 

 and clean skeletons; it was therefore a familiar 

 joke to bring him a fish and say that he " might be 

 interested in it because he had probably never seen 

 one before/' But he had an unprecedented mastery 

 over the literature of science and a keener appre- 

 ciation of the meaning of structure in classification 

 and in evolution than that shown by any other 

 naturalist. Nearly all of the few misconceptions in 

 his work come from trusting to other writers in regard 

 to statements inadequately verified by them and not 

 at all by him. 



In my own work Dr. Gill was helpful and eager 

 to give all possible assistance and information. 

 Many other young naturalists had a similar ex- 

 perience. But with Dr. Giinther of London, whose 

 genius ran in a totally different channel, he was in 

 chronic collision about matters in which either one 



n 175 a . 



