was illustrated by carefully executed drawings by his own hand, and 

 published in the year 1832, when he was only 27 years of age. 

 The Cephalopoda continued to engage his attention, and the merits 

 of a memoir on fossil Belenmites from the Oxford Clay, published in 

 the ' Philosophical Transactions ' in 1844, was the cause assigned for 

 the award to him of the Royal Medal in 1846. He contributed 

 the article " Cephalopoda," to the ' Cyclopedia of Anatomy and 

 Physiology' (1836), catalogued the extinct Cephalopoda in the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (1856), and wrote original 

 papers on ClavageUa (1834), Trichina spiralis (1835), Linguatula, 

 (1835), Distoma (1835), Spondylus (1838), Euplectella (1841), Tere- 

 bratula (in the introduction to Davidson's classical ' Monograph of the 

 British Fossil Brachiopods,' 1853), and many other subjects, includ- 

 ing the well-known essay on " Parthenogenesis, or the Successive 

 Production of Procreating Individuals from a Single Ovum " (1849). 



In 1843 his ' Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology 

 of the Invertebrate Animals,' in the form of notes taken by his pupil 

 Mr. W. White Cooper, appeared as a separate work. Of this, a 

 second expanded and revised edition was published in 1855. By this 

 time, as the Royal Society's ' Catalogue of Scientific Papers ' shows, 

 he had been the author of as many as 250 separate scientific 

 memoirs. 



In 1856, when Owen had reached the zenith of his fame, and 

 was recognised throughout Europe as the first anatomist of the day, 

 a change came over his career. Difficulties with the governing body 

 of the College of Surgeons, arising from his impatience at being 

 required to perform what he considered the lower administrative 

 duties of his office, caused him readily to take advantage of an offer 

 from the Trustees of the British Museum to undertake a newly 

 created post, that of Superintendent of the Natural History Depart- 

 ments of the Museum. It was thought that hitherto these depart- 

 ments, being under the direct control of a chief who had been 

 invariably chosen from the literary side of the establishment, and 

 whose title in fact was that of " Principal Librarian," had not obtained 

 their due share of attention in the general and financial administra- 

 tion, and that if they were grouped together an placed under a 

 strong administrator, who should be able to exercise influence in 

 advocating their claims to consideration, and who should be respon- 

 sible for their internal working, their relative position in the 

 establishment would be improved. Owen was accordingly placed in 

 this position, with a salary of 800 a year,* and bade farewell to the 

 College of Surgeons, its museum, and its lectures. At the British 



* It may be mentioned that he was already in receipt of a Civil List pension of 

 200 a year, accorded to him in consideration of his scientific work, mainly in the 

 completion of the catalogue of the Hunterian Collections. 



