London, Edinburgh, § Dublin Philosophical Magazine. 441 



birds, but some of them descriptive of new or rare Mammalia, or 

 new forms of exotic insects or birds.* 



Mr. Vigors was a man of very considerable attainments as a 

 scholar as well as a naturalist, f and made a liberal use of an ample 

 private fortune in the promotion of those sciences which he culti- 

 vated : he was the representative in Parliament, for some years be- 

 fore his death, first of the city, and lastly of the county, of 

 Carlow." 



"John Friedrich Blumenbach was born on the 11th of May, 1752, 

 at Gotha, where his father was Protector of the Gymnasium. He 

 was accustomed to attribute the formation of his taste for literary 

 history and the study of the natural sciences to the instructions and 

 encouragement of Menz and Christ, two professors of Leipsig, who 

 were friends and fellow-townsmen of his father. After studying for 

 sometime at Jena, he removed to Gottingen, for the purpose of com- 

 pleting his medical course, where he was very favourably noticed by 

 Heyne and Michselis, and more particularly by Biittner, Professor of 

 Natural History, a great linguist, and a man of very extraordinary 

 acquirements, whose museum of medals and natural history, when af- 

 terwards purchased by the University, he was employed to arrange. 

 The skill and diligence which he shewed in this employment, and 

 the reputation of his professional and other attainments, secured him 

 the appointment of Extraordinary Professor of Medicine in 1776, and 

 of Ordinary Professor in 1778, a situation which he continued to 

 hold for nearly sixty years. 



His lectures comprehended Natural History, Comparative Anato- 

 my, Physiology, and Pathology, on all which subjects he published 

 many valuable memoirs and other works, more particularly his ad- 

 mirable Manuals, which have long enjoyed an extraordinary popula- 

 rity, and which have been translated into nearly every great European 

 language. 



The first of this series of publications was the " Handbuch der 

 Naturgeschichte," which appeared in 1779. In his " Institutiones 



* Mr. Vigors's name has very frequently appeared in our pages, from the time when he first 

 became known as a naturalist to a very recent period. Abstracts of many papers by him occur 

 in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, beginning in Phil. Mag. and Annals, N. S. vol. 

 ix. p. 54, and continued through that and the present series.— Edit. 



t Mr. Vigors was the author of " An Inquiry into the Nature and Extent of the Poetic 

 Licence," of which a second edition appeared in 1813, Lond. 8vo. — Edit. 



