476 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY 



" arthronemcs,'' and those of the more elementary and " adipose 

 fin " type " protoncmes " : and had he lived to complete the task, 

 I question whether it would not have excelled his earlier achieve- 

 ments. 



The Rabbit was to have been the subject of the first of the 

 afore-mentioned books, and in the desire to get at the full mean- 

 ing of problems which arose during its progress, he was led to 

 digress into a general anatomical survey of the Rodentia, and 

 in testimony to this there remain five or six books of rough 

 notes bearing dates 1880 to 1884, and a series of finished pencil- 

 drawings, which, as works of art and accurate delineations of 

 fact, are among the most finished productions of his hand. In 

 the same manner his contemplated work upon the Vertebrata 

 led him during 1879-1880 to renewed investigation of the anato- 

 my of some of the more aberrant orders. Especially as concern- 

 ing the Marsupialia and Edentata was this the case, and to the 

 end in view he secured living specimens of the Vulpine Pha- 

 langer, and purchased of the Zoological Society the Sloths and 

 Ant-eaters which during that period died in their Gardens. 

 These he carefully dissected, and he leaves among his papers a 

 series of incomplete notes (fullest as concerning the Phalanger 

 and Cape Ant-eater \Orycteropus~\ *), which were never fin- 

 ished up. 



They prove that he intended the production of special mono- 

 graphs on the anatomy of these peculiar mammalian forms, 'as 

 he did on members of other orders which he had less fully in- 

 vestigated, and on the more important groups of fishes alluded 

 to in the earlier part of my letter; and there seems no doubt, 

 from the collocation of dates and study of the order of the 

 events, that his memorable paper " On the Application of the 

 Laws of Evolution to the arrangement of the Vertebrata, and 

 more particularly of the Mammalia," published in the Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. for 1880,— the most masterly among his scientific 

 theses — was the direct outcome of this intention, the only ex- 

 pression which he gave to the world of the interaction of a 

 series of revolutionary ideas and conceptions (begotten of the 

 labours of his closing years as a working zoologist) which were 



* I was privileged to assist in the dissection of the latter animal, 

 and well do I remember how, when by means of a blow-pipe he had 

 inflated the bladder, intent on determining its limit of distensibility, 

 the organ burst, with unpleasant results, which called forth the 

 remark, " I think we'll leave it at that ! " 



