APPENDIX I 431 



The Eabbit was to have been the subject of the first of 

 the aforementioned books, and in the desire to get at the 

 full meaning of problems which arose during its progress, 

 he was led to digress into a general anatomical survey of 

 the Eodentia, and in testimony to this there remain five 

 or six books of rough notes bearing dates 1880 to 1884, 

 and a series of finished pencil-drawings, which, as works 

 of art and accurate delineations of fact, are among the 

 most finished productions of his hand. In the same 

 manner his contemplated work upon the Vertebrata led 

 him dming 1879-1880 to renewed investigation of the 

 anatomy of some of the more aberrant orders. Especially 

 as concerning the Marsupialia and Edentata was this the 

 case, and to the end in view he secured living speci- 

 mens of the Vulpine Phalanger, and purchased of the 

 Zoological Society the Sloths and Ant-eaters which during 

 that period died in their Gardens. These he carefully dis- 

 sected, and he leaves among his papers a series of incomplete 

 notes (fullest as concerning the Phalanger and Cape Ant- 

 eater [^Orycteropusj i), which were never finished up. 



They prove that he intended the production of special 

 monographs on the anatomy of these peculiar mammalian 

 forms, as he did on members of other orders which he had 

 less fully investigated, and on the more important groups 

 cf fishes alluded to in the earlier part of my letter ; and 

 there seems no doubt, from the collocation of dates and 

 study of the order of the events, that his memorable 

 paper " On the Application of the Laws of Evolution to 

 the arrangement of the Vertebrata, and more particularly 

 of the Mammalia," published in the Proc. Zool. Soc. for 

 1880, — the most masterly among his scientific theses — 

 was the direct outcome of this intention, the only ex- 



^ I was privileged to assist in the dissection of the latter animal, 

 and well do I remember how, when by means of a blow-pipe he had 

 inflated the bladder, intent on determining its limit of distensi- 

 bility, the organ burst, with unpleasant results, which called forth 

 the remark, " I think we'll leave it at that ! " 



