October 2, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



453 



ElCHARD ASSHETON, EdWARD J. BlES, Ed- 



WAKD T. Browne, J. Herbert Budgett and 

 J. Graham Kerr. Edited by J. Graham 

 Kerr. Pp. x + 494; 28 plates; 173 figures 

 in the text. Cambridge University Press, 

 1907. 



John Samuel Budgett died January 19, 

 1904, at the age of thirty-two, from malarial 

 fever contracted during his last and success- 

 ful expedition to Africa in quest of the long 

 and eagerly sought early development of 

 Polyptertis. The beautiful volume prepared 

 by his friends and colleagues is a fitting 

 memorial of his life and work and one that 

 stirs a keen sense of the loss that science suf- 

 fered by his untimely death. A collection of 

 Budgett's own works and of others based on 

 his material is preceded by an excellent bio- 

 graphical sketch by Mr. Shipley. Erom this 

 we learn that his early interest in natural his- 

 tory was encouraged by his father's friends. 

 Professor W. K. Parker and the Eev. Dr. 

 Dallinger, and later by Dr. Lloyd Morgan, 

 but until his entrance to Cambridge Univer- 

 sity he was largely self taught. The remark- 

 able abilities he displayed at Cambridge 

 brought him the opportunity to accompany 

 Mr. Graham Kerr on his brilliantly successful 

 expedition to Paraguay in 1896-7, the prin- 

 cipal result of which was to make known the 

 development of Lepidosiren. On this expedi- 

 tion Budgett gave especial attention to the 

 amphibia, afterwards publishing a valuable 

 account of their breeding habits and of the 

 development of Phyllomedusa. The principal 

 result for him was, however, to arouse his 

 determination to attack the development of 

 the crossopterygians ; and to the search for this 

 material the nest five years were devoted with 

 indomitable persistency and courage. In the 

 effort to procure the early stages of Polyp- 

 terus and Galamicthys, and also of Protop- 

 tems, he made four successive expeditions to 

 Africa, the last of which, in 1903, was crovmed 

 with success but cost him his life. The first 

 expedition, to the Gambia River in 1898-9, 

 failed in its main object, but in the face of 

 great difficulties the breeding time of Polyp- 

 terus was determined and valuable additions 

 to our knowledge of the fauna of the Gambia 



were made. In a second attempt, made in the 

 same region during the rainy season of 1900, 

 the nests and larvae of Protopterus were dis- 

 covered and a single' larval stage of Polypterus 

 was procured which formed the subject of an 

 important memoir published in 1901. His 

 diaries of the expedition give a vivid impres- 

 sion of the courage and enthusiasm with 

 which he pursued his work in the tropical 

 swamps amid incessant heavy rains, and at 

 times attacked by fever. Upon his return to 

 Cambridge he became assistant curator in the 

 zoological museum and delivered lectures on 

 the geographical distribution of animals. In 

 1902 he was elected to the Balfour student- 

 ship, the " zoological blue ribbon of Cam- 

 bridge," and, with an additional grant from 

 the Zoological Society, was enabled to embark 

 on a third expedition, to the Victoria Nile. 

 For the third time he failed, but held to his 

 purpose. The final and successful attempt 

 was made in 1903. At Asse, on the river 

 Niger, he at last succeeded in artificially fer- 

 tilizing the eggs of Polyterus and in obtaining 

 a practically complete series of the stages of 

 development. But the climate had done its 

 deadly work. Returning to England be began 

 to work out his results, but suffered from re- 

 current attacks of malarial fever to which 

 within a few months he succumbed, his death 

 occurring on the very day for which a paper 

 by him on the development of Polypterus was 

 announced for the Zoological Society. He 

 had finished his drawings of the external fea- 

 tures of the early development, but it remained 

 for Professor Kerr to prepare the sections 

 and work out the results in detail. 



In the memorial volume are brought to- 

 gether ten of Budgett's papers, the most im- 

 portant of which deal with the development 

 of the skeleton and urino-genital system in 

 Polypterus, the early development of Protop- 

 terus, and that of Phyllomedusa. Other less 

 technical papers deal in an interesting way 

 with the general natural history of the tropical 

 regions that he visited. The remaining papers 

 of the volume, based on Budgett's material, 

 include, among others. Professor Graham 

 Kerr's very valuable memoir on the develop- 

 ment of Polypterus; another on the develop- 



