MEMOIR OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY. 267 



tion of the Vertebrata which he especially studied and advanced. 

 His excellent * Lectures on Comparative Anatomy,' ' Ele- 

 mentary Physiology,' ' Introduction to the Classification of 

 Animals,' and * Anatomy of Invertebrate Animals,' afford abun- 

 dant proof of this, to say nothing of his numerous important 

 monographs on living and extinct fishes, amphibians, reptiles, 

 birds, and mammals." 



In one only of the many appointments which he held did he 

 fail to shine. This was the Inspectorship of Salmon Fisheries, 

 which he applied for and secured on the death of Frank Buck- 

 land. For this post he was unsuited, possessing none of the 

 instincts of the out-of-door naturalist* or fisherman, and having 

 therefore little appreciation of the requirements needed in the 

 way of fishery legislation, and the best way of amending it. 

 Nor had he even that indispensable acquaintance with the Salmon 

 in all stages of its existence, all known by various local names, 

 which cannot be learnt from " spirit specimens," and which was 

 possessed, for example, by the late Surgeon-Major Francis Day 

 (Zool. 1889, p. 306), who was also a candidate for the post, and 

 who from his practical knowledge of the subject would have made 

 a far better Inspector of Fisheries. To a man of Prof. Huxley's 

 calibre the uncongenial nature of the duties attaching to the office, 

 and the long railway journeys necessitated by periodical inspec- 

 tions in distant parts of the country, soon became burdensome, 

 and it was therefore not long before he resigned the appoint- 

 ment, although not until he had prepared a valuable report, with 

 the aid of Mr. George Murray, on the nature of that troublesome 

 disease in Salmon, Saprolegnia. His monograph on the Crayfish 

 also (Internat. Sci. Series, 1880) marked this epoch in his life. 



Perhaps the most noteworthy fact in Prof. Huxley's career is 

 that he did more than any other man to uphold and promulgate 

 the doctrine of evolution. It was in 1858 that Charles Darwin 

 and Alfred Russel Wallace simultaneously laid their great theory 

 of * Natural Selection' before the Linnean Society, and in the 



* He said of himself: — "I am afraid there is very little of the genuine 

 naturalist in me. I never collected anything, and species work was always 

 a burden to me. What I cared for was the architectural and engineering 

 part of the business, the working out of the wonderful unity of plan in the 

 thousands and thousands of the diverse living constructions and the modifi- 

 cations of similar apparatuses to serve diverse ends**' 



