THE CETACEA AND ELECTRICAL FISHES. 137 



vancing years. In Fife, fishes and molluscs engaged 

 a good deal of his attention ; in Edinburgh, his zoolo- 

 gical studies were as widely divergent as the extremes 

 of monads and monkeys. In the midst of this variety, 

 however, the Knox indoctrination became visible in 

 his investigations of the Getacea, Salmonidce, and 

 Clupeidce, of which there were abundant supplies in 

 the Scottish seas and estuaries. At one time Goodsir 

 talked of writing a monograph on the Cetacea, and 

 this idea was entertained on the Continent, as the 

 naturalists of northern Europe frequently interrogated 

 him on the history and structure of these mammals. 

 If the Cetacea, inter alia, engaged the earlier years of 

 his professorship, electrical fishes came to be of greater 

 import to him in his meridian. He spared neither 

 money nor pains to obtain these rarer treasures, and 

 as his pupils were scattered over the globe he obtained 

 many specimens, though frequently at great expense. 



A knowledge of comparative anatomy was a great 

 desideratum with Goodsir, who aspired to rank with 

 Hunter of the past and Owen of the present day ; be- 

 sides its practical application in furnishing variety and 

 colouring to his systematic course of lectures. Having 

 no sympathy with the artificial aids to memory, or 

 what was styled popular teaching by diagrams, as 

 often incorrect as misleading, when trusted to per se, 

 he sought the higher ground of comparative anatomy 

 and physiology as adjuvantia to his prelections. 

 Human osteology stn<li<<l alongside that «»f the higher 

 mammalia, extanl or fossilized, became of deep interest 



