NATURE 



[March 6, 19 19 



the " Biolog-ia Centrali-Americana " : "The sever- 

 ance of a friendship such as ours had been for 

 forty-four years was a terrible blow to me, for 

 we were more intimately connected than most 

 brothers, and, besides the personal loss, I missed 

 his knowledge and experience in all things con- 

 nected with our book. ... It was with a heavy 

 heart that I took up my pen again." 



The choice of Central America as the field for 

 their great enterprise was determined by an acci- 

 dent^ — the search for commercially profitable palm- 

 nuts by Salvin in 1857— but no accident could have 

 been more fortunate, for it hit upon the most 

 interesting and exciting of all links between the 

 tropics and the great northern land-belt. Pro- 

 longed isolation has led to the development, upon 

 the great continent to the south, of a fauna un- 

 equalled in the world for combined peculiarity and 

 richness. Then, in the fullness of time, the area 

 supporting this teeming and varied population lost 

 its isolation. What more exciting problem than 

 a study of the intermediate tract which would 

 show how far the southern forms have pushed 

 to the north, the northern to the south ? We 

 know, as the result of this study, that the boundary 

 between the two areas is concave towards the 

 north, for the lower temperature of the high 

 central Mexican plateau favours the northern 

 forms, while the heat of the lower slopes and flats 

 on the two coasts favours the southern. 



It is unnecessary, on the present occasion, to 

 speak in any detail of the sixty-three quarto 

 volumes and 1677 plates in which this splendid 

 contribution to zoology, botany, and anthropology 

 is contained, for an admirable and yet brief state- 

 ment of the history and scope of the work will 

 be found in Godman's introduction, published in 

 191 6. But a word must be said of the great band 

 of naturalists who gathered round and assisted the 

 two editors. Of this band, some, like H. W. 

 Bates, Albert Giinther, Joseph Hooker, O. 

 Pickard-Cambridge, and P. L. Sclater, were 

 veterans in 1879, when the first part appeared, 

 and are now great memories. Others, again, 

 found in the " Biologia " the whole of their train- 

 ing, and nearly the whole of their experience, as 

 systematists. It is as Godman and Salvin would 

 have wished, that their memories should always 

 be bound up with those of the great body of 

 experts who laboured with them. 



Godman was the most modest of men. He 

 found his reward in his love of the work he had 

 undertaken, and looked neither for honours nor for 

 recognition ; but when they came the evidence of 

 appreciation by his scientific comrades was a great 

 pleasure and encouragement to him. 



Outside his own subject Godman took a keen 

 interest in all that concerned the advancement of 

 science, and its neglect in this country was a real 

 grief to him. He saw clearly the double import- 

 ance of science for its own sake and for the 

 sake of the intellectual training it gives. In these 

 essential things he felt strongly that the country 

 was being starved, and he feared for the future 

 when he thought of our politicians and the way 

 NO. 2575, VOL. 103] 



they had accepted their responsibilities in the 

 past. 



In failing health at the end of his long life, 

 Godman's interest and sympathy remained un- 

 clouded, and in his dying hours he sent a last 

 message to his colleagues giving his opinion on 

 a much-debated subject about which he felt 

 strongly. His last thoughts were with the great 

 National Museum to which he had made so many 

 noble contributions, E. B. P. 



NOTES. 



The following fifteen candidates were selected on 

 Thursday last by the council of the Royal Society to 

 be recommended for election into the society : — Prof. 

 F. A. Bainbridge, Dr. G. Barger, Dr. S. Chapman, 

 Sir C. F. Close, Dr. J. W. Evans, Sir Maurice Fitz- 

 maurice, Dr. G. S. Graham-Smith, Mr. E. Heron- 

 Allen, Dr. W. D. Matthew, Dr. C. G. Seligman, 

 Prof. B. D. Steele, Major G. I. Taylor, Prof. G. N. 

 Watson, Dr. J. C. Willis, and Prof. T. B. Wood. 



Sir Lazarus Fletcher retired on March 3 from the 

 directorship of the Natural History Museum after 

 forty-one years in the service of the Trustees. 

 Previous to his appointment as director on May 22, 

 1909, he had served two years as assistant and 

 twenty-nine years as keeper in the Mineral Depart- 

 ment. As keeper of minerals his first arduous task 

 was to superintend the removal of the mineral col- 

 lections from Bloomsbury to South Kensington, and 

 to re-arrange them in the Natural History Museum. 

 His next work was the preparation of those admir- 

 able guides, the introductions to the study of minerals, 

 rocks, and meteorites respectively, and the selection 

 and arrangement of series of specimens to illustrate 

 them, which have earned him the gratitude of all 

 students of the subject. "The Introduction to the 

 Study of Minerals " is a highly successful attempt on 

 the part of a great mathematician and chemist to sur- 

 mount the difficulty of explaining a very technical 

 subject without the aid of mathematics and chemical 

 formulae. In the intervals of this work, and later, 

 Sir Lazarus Fletcher found time, in the chemical 

 laboratory which had been fitted up in the museum, 

 for his well-known researches on meteorites and 

 minerals. After this exacting work as keeper of the 

 Mineral Department, his tenure of office as director 

 of the museum was still not devoid of care, for soon 

 after his accession an attempted encroachment upon 

 the grounds which had been allotted for the future 

 expansion of the museum had to be repelled, and 

 more recently during the war certain proposals which, 

 if carried out, would have been disastrous to the 

 collections had to be met. 



A FEW weeks ago (January 23, p. 409) we referred 

 to the approaching retirement of Sir Lazarus Fletcher 

 from the directorship of the Natural History Museum, 

 and the duty thus placed upon the Trustees of find- 

 ing a successor who will maintain the high prestige 

 of the museum among the corresponding institutions 

 of the world From the letter which appears in our 

 correspondence columns, signed by twenty-three 

 naturalists of distinguished eminence, it appears that, 

 as a temporary measure, the appointment of an 

 administrative official to the post of director has been 

 contemplated. We can scarcely believe that the 

 Trustees will adopt such a course of action, which 

 would be most derogatory to the position of science 

 and the interests of the museum. The shortness of 

 tenure, and the provision of an increased retiring 



