382 OUtuary—The Rev. R. Hunter. 



is the anus, which in 1883 and even later was thought to be the 

 mouth by many American writers. The supposed jaws are pre- 

 sumably the anal pyramid, which Dr. Gregory suggests came to be 

 part of the apical system, i.e. at the aboral pole. 



The species, in short, though perhaps not referable to the Car- 

 boniferous genus, Lepidodiscus, do not depart from the plan of the 

 Agelacrinidfe, and anyone who wishes to maintain them in a separate 

 genus should be asked to show the differences between tbem and 

 Agelacrinus, Haplocystis, and one or two other of their allies. 



Dr. Gregory appears to accept Haeckel's view that the ambulacra 

 of the Agelacrinidse bore pinnules. This may have been the case 

 with one or two of the genera placed by Haeckel in his Agelacystidas ; 

 but it can scarcely have been the case with any of the genera 

 mentioned by Di'. Gregory. 



It seems as well to indicate these minor lapses, which none will 

 regard as detracting from the interest or value of my friend's long- 

 looked-for paper. 



British Museum (Nat. Hist.), F. A. Bathek. 



London, S.W. 



THE REV. ROBERT HUNTER, M.A., LL.D., F.G.S. 



Born 1823. Died February 25, 1897. 



EoBEET Hunter was born at Newburgh in 1823, and was the 

 son of Mr. John Mackenzie Hunter, a Scotsman from Portpatrick, in 

 Wigtownshire, his mother being (nee Agnes Strickland) an English- 

 woman from Ulverston, in Lancashire. In 1826 his father, with his 

 family, removed to Aberdeen. There Eobert Hunter, after attending 

 the leading academy, entered the Grammar School, then under the 

 celebrated rector. Dr. Melvin. Here he took the first prize in the 

 third, fourth, and fifth classes of the school, and afterwards, when 

 still only fourteen, he came out at the head of seventy-nine com- 

 petitors in the open examination for University bursaries. He thus 

 obtained the first, and entered Marischal College in the University 

 of Aberdeen. There, a few months later, he was first in Latin and 

 first in Greek, and in the third year first also in Mathematics. 

 Among secular studies, however, Natural Science had supreme 

 attractions for him. This subject was conducted by Dr. John Shier, 

 and in his second year Eobert Hunter gained the first prize, the 

 second being awarded to Hugh Mitchell, afterwards Minister of the 

 Free Church, Ferry den, who proved in later years a most excellent 

 geologist and palaeontologist. [The Eev. Hugh Mitchell, M.A., 

 LL.D., passed away on November 10, 1894, and his obituary, written 

 by Dr. Eobert Hunter, his friend and former classmate (now, alas ! 

 also lost to us) appeared in the Geol. Mag. for 1894, p. 575.] 

 Eobert Hunter and Hugh Mitchell, with an ardour prophetic of 

 future eminence, roamed the country for many miles around the 

 granite city making Natural History collections. But, as the result 

 of prosecuting reseai'ches in spite of wind and weather, Hunter 

 was laid up for three months with a serious illness. The day of 



