EDWARD FORBES. 



EDWARD FORBES deserves special mention as an admirable 

 representative of the old and honourable race of general 

 naturalists. He was a naturalist in the old sense of this 

 term, rather than a zoologist ; and he belonged, therefore, 

 to a genus which is in the present epoch much less largely 

 represented than it used to be. As a matter of course, he 

 was essentially and principally a zoologist, or an investi- 

 gator of animals. He was even a specialist in zoology, and 

 his name will long be remembered in connection with 

 the British Mollusca and the British Echinoderms. But 

 he was much more than a mere zoologist; he was an 

 accomplished botanist, and a very able geologist. 



Rarely, indeed, do we now find any one man uniting in 

 himself high excellence in these three departments. Nor 

 can such be well expected, in view of the enormous 

 development that these three sciences have, one and all, 

 undergone since the middle of this century. At the same 

 time, there is cause for regret that specialisation should 

 now so completely rule in all departments of natural his- 

 tory. Less than fifty years ago, any teacher of zoology 

 considered a knowledge of geology and palaeontology the 



