2 Eminent Living Geologists — 



researches had led him. Arthur Smith Woodward took elahorate 

 notes of these lectures, and made use of them while assisting 

 Mr. William Davies in incorporating the great Egerton and 

 Enniskillen Collections of Fossil Fishes, which had previously been 

 acquired by the British Museum. His curatorial work showed him 

 that the collection of Fossil Fishes in the Museum then provided 

 ample material for placing the study of these fossils on an entirely 

 new basis in the light of recent discoveries. He thus began to devote 

 his leisure to some preliminary researches, which led the Trustees of 

 the British Museum, on the recommendation of the Keeper of Geology, 

 to entrust to him the preparation of an exhaustive Catalogue of 

 Fossil Fishes, which absorbed most of his energies between 1887 

 and 1901, and was completed in four large volumes. The work of 

 E. D. Cope and R. H. Traquair especially laid the foundation for the 

 new point of view from which the subject was regarded, and a large 

 proportion of the changes in classification and interpretation of the 

 various groups of extinct fishes proposed in the Catalogue have now 

 been generally adopted. The first volume was noteworthy for the 

 earliest adequate recognition of the primitive character of the 

 Palaeozoic sharks, and for the detailed description of many Mesozoic 

 sharks, such as Hxjbodus and Acrodus, which "had previously been 

 known only in a vague manner. The second volume added much to 

 our knowledge of the problematical Acanthodians and Ostracoderms, 

 and other Palaeozoic groups of so-called 'ganoids', emphasizing the 

 importance of fin-structure in classification already recognized by 

 Cope and Traquair. The third volume provided the first series of 

 detailed osteological descriptions of many groups of Mesozoic 

 ' ganoids', while the fourth volume was devoted to a critical synopsis 

 of our knowledge of the bony fishes. During the progress of this 

 work and subsequently Dr. Woodward published upwards of 200 

 small descriptive papers on various fossil fishes, besides three memoirs 

 on the Permo-Carboniferous, Triassic, and Jurassic Fishes of New 

 South Wales (fori the Geological Survey of that country), a memoir 

 on the Carboniferous Fishes of Victoria, Australia (for the Melbourne 

 Museum), a Monograph of the English Chalk Fishes (for the Palaeonto- 

 graphical Society), and a memoir on the Fossil Fishes of the Whitby 

 Lias (for the Yorkshire Geological Society), all profusely illustrated 

 with lithographic plates. He was also a pioneer in the description of 

 the fossil fishes of South Africa, Brazil, Greenland, and Spitzbergen. 

 During the preparation of the Catalogue of Fossil Fishes, 

 Dr. Woodward spent most of his vacations in foreign countries to 

 examine the collections in other Museums, and became personally 

 acquainted with those who were pursuing researches on fossil fishes 

 abroad. He has also made similar use of his vacations in connexion 

 with other palseontological work since the Catalogue was completed. 

 He has thus been led to take a gradually widening interest in many 

 departments of vertebrate palaeontology, and so long ago as 1898 he 

 prepared an elementary treatise, Outlines of Vertebrate Palaeontology 

 for Students of Zoology, which was published by the Cambridge 

 University Press. Four journeys to North America in 1890, 1900, 

 1904, and 1909, have enabled him to follow closely the wonderful 



