74 Obituary Notices of Felloivs deceased. 



ship, he produced memoir after memoir, to which allusion will elsewhere 

 be made. The collection itself, under his fostering care attained a per- 

 fection and value that have made it famous all over the world, 

 especially in regard to the skeletons and spirit-preparations of rare 

 and unique forms. The patience with which he measured, figured, and 

 described minute differences or salient features in skeletons, or ex- 

 posed the characters of soft parts by dissection, have rarely been 

 equalled. Moreover, as he generously acknowledged, the unique 

 series of dissections of muscles, blood-vessels, and viscera (mostly 

 human) was designed and largely executed by Professor Pettigrew, 

 according to a process devised by this ingenious anatomist and 

 physiologist. As the President of the Eoyal Society stated on pre- 

 senting Sir William with the Royal Medal, "it is very largely due to 

 his incessant and well-directed labours that the Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons at present contains the most complete, the best 

 ordered, and the most accessible collection of materials for the study 

 of vertebrate structures extant. " These labours give to his work on 

 Comparative Osteology an accuracy and thoroughness all its own. 



Besides his more strictly scientific work, he about this time began, 

 the series of popular lectures by which he enlisted the sympathies 

 of a wider audience, and extended general information on interesting 

 and important subjects. One of his earlier lectures in this depart- 

 ment brought under review the condition of the human foot and its 

 coverings in the various races of men. 



The retirement of his friend, Professor Huxley, from the Hunterian 

 Professorship of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the College 

 of Surgeons was followed by his own appointment, and he held this 

 office from 1870 to 1884. His Introductory Lecture, in February 

 1870, brought in a memorable way before his hearers such topics as 

 type or plan, transmutation of species and organic evolution, and he 

 prefaced his remarks by explaining that as the main part of his know- 

 ledge was gained by constant contact with the noble collections in the 

 Museum, so he intended to act as the mouth-piece of the specimens 

 and endeavour to convey to his audience what they had taught him, 

 and this and his subsequent courses more than justified his method. 

 His comparison of the foot of the Koala and that of the Kangaroo, 

 the teeth of the Thylacine and that of the Dog afforded his audience 

 an excellent illustration of the developmental theory as propounded 

 by Darwin and Wallace. His lectures were published in 1870. In 

 the following course (1871) he gave eighteen lectures on the structure, 

 functions and modifications of the teeth of mammals from man to 

 the monotremes. The true teeth of Ornithorhynchus, however, were 

 not then known, and it was reserved for Professor Poulton at a later 

 period to demonstrate them. These courses of lectures often revealed 

 the nature of his studies, e.g., those of 1877 being "On the Relations 



