128 LIFE OP ALBANY HANCOCK, BY DK. EMBLETON. 



the Excavating powers of certain Sponges, as Cliona ; with de- 

 scriptions of several new species and an allied generic form." 

 These remarkable original papers will be found characterized 

 below. Many other valuable papers, each of which is deserving 

 of especial notice, will be found mentioned in the appended list 

 of his works ; and he continued his contributions to the Trans- 

 actions up to the year of his decease. On more than one occa- 

 sion, and after much solicitation, he modestly declined the honour 

 of being elected President of the Club. 



After the completion of the Monograph of the Nudibranchiata 

 he worked alone on "The Organization of the Brachiopoda," and 

 his essay with this title, in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1858, is a splendid proof of his talents as an enlightened Natural- 

 ist, a philosophical anatomist, and an accomplished artist. 



The Royal Society, in acknowledgment of their appreciation 

 of the high value of his works on the Mollusca, and of that on 

 the Brachiopoda in particular, awarded him, in 1858, a Royal 

 medal, an honour conferred on few. 



In the address of the President of that year (the Right Hon. 

 Lord Wrottesley) at the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal So- 

 ciety, the following notice was taken of Albany Hancock's la- 

 bours, on the presentation to him, through Prof. Huxley, of the 

 Royal medal. After a commendatory notice of the papers on 

 Eolis and Doris, the Monograph on the Nuclibranchiata is cha- 

 racterised as "a work eminent alike for the beauty and fidelity 

 of its illustrations and the value and completeness of its zoological 

 and anatomical details." And further, " Among the more impor- 

 tant of Mr. Hancock's numerous independent contributions to 

 science should be noticed a valuable paper on the 'Excavating 

 powers of certain Sponges ;' his discovery and accurate account 

 of a new and curious genus of burrowing Cirripedes, and several 

 others ; in all of which is manifested a remarkable capacity for 

 minute and accurate observation conjoined with great powers of 

 generalisation. But in none of Mr. Hancock's labours are these 

 faculties so eminently displayed as in his more recent investiga- 

 tion of the organisation of the Brachiopoda. In his elaborate 

 monograph on this most difficult subject, and of which it may 



