Palaeontology. 167 



That is to say, he was a "philosophical anatomist", 

 and believed that the facts of homology justified a doc- 

 trine of archetypal ideas. He differed from Agassiz 

 most markedly in his apparent disregard of embryo- 

 logical work. 



By his Researches on the Fossil Remains of the Ex- 

 tinct Mammals of Australia, with a notice of the Extinct 

 Marsupials of England (2 vols., 1877), his Memoirs on 

 the Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand (2 vols., 

 1879), his History of British Fossil Reptiles (1849-1884), 

 his British Fossil Mammals and Birds (1846), his 

 numerous papers on the Mesozoic land-reptiles to which 

 he gave the name of Dinosaurs, his monograph on the 

 oldest known bird, Archceopteryx, and a hundred other 

 pieces of work, Owen did incalculable service to palae- 

 ontology. 



Sharing Cuvier's confidence in the principle of corre- 

 lation, he did not hesitate to reconstruct from the most 

 fragmentary evidence, and the mistakes into which he 

 was thus often led have been valuable lessons to sub- 

 sequent workers. 



We have already noticed that Louis Agassiz (1807- 

 1873) may be described as a Cuvierian who was at the 

 same time an embryologist. His palaeonto- Louis 

 logical work, with which we have here to Agassiz. 

 do, was mainly concerned with fossil fishes, to which 

 he was attracted while still a young student, stimulated 

 perhaps by Bronn's lectures on palaeontology, by the 

 publication of Goldfuss's Petrefacta Germanicz, and by 

 the fine collections of fossils at Munich. The precise 

 opportunity for studying fishes was found, however, in 

 a collection which had remained as a residue of a 

 Brazilian exploration by Von Martius and Spix. These 

 were handed over to Agassiz by Von Martius, who was 

 professor of botany in Munich, and the coincidence is 

 curious that one of Agassiz's subsequent explorations 

 was to Brazil. 



It is historically interesting to notice that as a student 

 for a session in Heidelberg, Agassiz had attended the 

 lectures of Schelling and Oken, which doubtless had 

 their influence in strengthening his natural idealism. 



