Apeil 4, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



511 



Traquair had a specimen of Palwospondylus 

 for years in his possession before publishing 

 it to the world: he had apparently waited in 

 the hope of being able to throw additional 

 light on this elusive fossil. 



The work of Dr. Traquair may be described 

 as that of a morphologist working out anatom- 

 ical structures as a key to relationships, rather 

 than that of a systematist. Still he described, 

 as one should, such new species as came his 

 way — perhaps a hundred in all. His greatest 

 service was in establishing clearly the limits 

 and the relationships of certain of the larger 

 groups, such as the lungfishes and the Actinop- 

 terygia, and in carrying their history back to 

 the early Devonian. In his classic memoir on 

 the Palaeoniscidse, he showed on evidence that 

 is now accepted as incontrovertible — but which 

 none the less was not at all evident before he 

 took up these obscure fossils — that these fishes 

 are related to the sturgeons, especially to such 

 forms as Polyodon, and not, as previously be- 

 lieved, to the gar pikes. This conclusion was 

 of far-reaching importance, leading to a modi- 

 fication of many other ideas of the inter-rela- 

 tionships of the groups of fishes. The flat- 

 tened, compressed Platysomidae, he proved, are 

 a specialized branch of the Palseoniscidse ; and 

 he showed conclusively that Cheirolepis was a 

 primitive ganoid, not an Acanthodian, and 

 thus traced back the history of the acantho- 

 pterygian fishes almost as far back as that of 

 any other group. He was the first to prove 

 that the Devonian Dipterus was a lungfish, 

 and thus he extended the geological history of 

 this group. He gave us a revised study of the 

 Arthrodire, Coccosteus, on which one or two 

 restorations by other writers were subse- 

 quently based; and it was he who first clearly 

 defined the characters of Homosteus and of 

 PhlycicBnaspis. He was the first to bring to- 

 gether our scattered knowledge of Pterichthys 

 and to give a restoration of this form; and he, 

 also, worked out the anatomy of that primitive 

 type, Drepanaspis. To Traquair also must be 

 credited whatever knowledge we possess of 

 those extraordinary forms Thelodus and 

 Lanarkia, which gave us the first conception 

 of the appearance and the structure of the 

 earliest known vertebrates. Dr. Traquair also 



devoted considerable time to preparing mono- 

 graphs of the fishes of the Old Red Sandstone. 

 These were published by the Paleontographical 

 Society, and appeared in parts, as ready; 

 these, unfortunately, are left unfinished. 



These are only a few of the more far-reach- 

 ing studies of Dr. Traquair which our limited 

 space allows us to mention, but there was 

 hardly a field of paleozoic ichthyology which 

 he did not touch, and, as was well said by one 

 of his biographers, he touched nothing that 

 he did not adorn. 



Personally, Dr. Traquair was a most charm- 

 ing man. In 1909 the writer had the privi- 

 lege of seeing him almost daily at the museum 

 or in his home. He was quiet and reserved in 

 bearing, but he possessed a fund of humor 

 that was all the more surprising because, on 

 account of his quiet manner, it was not at first 

 expected. One could not be with him many 

 days without seeing that the man was far 

 greater than his works. He had a deep ap- 

 preciation for the beauties of nature. He had 

 a great love for Scottish history and knew the 

 legends concerning every name and place, 

 whether it was Mons Meg or Holyrood Abbey. 

 He was a most charming host, and the memory 

 long lingers of having seen him the center of 

 a circle at an afternoon tea, when he was the 

 life of the whole company. He was very fond 

 of flowers, and the artistically laid out rectang- 

 ular garden, sloping down from the rear of the 

 house at Colinton, near Edinburgh, gave him 

 great delight, and he talked with genuine 

 pleasure of its every plant. He was a student 

 of modern languages, which were his hobby, 

 and it was with amazement that one who 

 knew only his work on fossil fishes heard him 

 discourse, at length, on words and their his- 

 tory. He used to spend most of his vacations 

 in Germany because of his great love for the 

 language and for the ways of German savants ; 

 and he spoke the language fluently, and wrote 

 it with a grace that is seldom achieved except 

 in one's mother tongue. 



Those who have known Dr. Traquair inti- 

 mately are deeply grieved to have lost a wise 

 and lovable friend. 



l. hussakof 



American Museum of Natural History 



