26 MEMOIR OF DP, WRIGHT. 



tific pursuits. A resolution had been recently adopt- 

 ed by that University, for the establishment of a 

 Museum of Natural History ; and the invitation which 

 was offered to Dr Wright, through the medium of 

 Dr Ramsay, the Regius Professor of the science, to 

 become a contributor to the collection, was accepted 

 with as much alacrity as it was afterwards prosecuted 

 with perseverance and effect. His earliest contribu- 

 tions were chiefly confined to the departments of Or- 

 nithology and Entomology, in which the stores of the 

 Museum have since become so copious and so rich. 

 In the preparation of his specimens, and in those in- 

 stances, especially, where any preservative process was 

 required, Dr Wright had a singular neatness of me- 

 thod and manipulation, which added greatly to their 

 value. They were uniformly accompanied with a ca- 

 talogue raisonnee ; and whenever objects of novelty 

 or curiosity occurred, a separate historical memoir was 

 added : but it is matter of regret, that the facts which 

 were thus accumulated, and the valuable correspon- 

 dence which was for many years maintained between 

 Dr Wright, while resident in Jamaica, and Dr John 

 Hope and Dr Ramsay, the Professors of Botany and 

 Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, 

 should be for ever lost to science and the world. 



But Dr Wright never permitted the avocations 

 of science to interfere with the exact performance of 

 his professional duties. The leading characteristic of 

 his medical practice appears to have had its origin in 

 a close and discriminating attention to the operations 

 of nature, in opposition to the visionary views of in- 



