HUNTER'S PUBLISHED PAPER ON FOSSILS. 295 



the last man to write upon a subject that he did not believe himself to 

 have thoroughly investigated, — what were the grounds on which he 

 had based a dissertation on the general subject of ' Extraneous Fossils?' 

 The reply is given, most amply, by the collection of fossil remains 

 which he had made at the date of its composition, which was close 

 upon the period of his demise ; most satisfactorily, by the systematic 

 arrangement of that collection ; by the juxtaposition, in some instances, 

 of the recent analogue with the fossil, and by the evidence of his close 

 attention to the subject in the Catalogue which he left of those arranged 

 specimens of Palaeontology. In this Catalogue, a greater proportion of 

 the specimens bear names than in any other of Hunter's MS. Catalogues : 

 such names, at least, as Hunter could obtain or determine in regard to 

 them; the locality of the fossil being, likewise, in most instances recorded. 



Having completed the descriptive Catalogues of the Vertebrate Fossils 

 and a general survey and preliminary class-arrangement of the Inverte- 

 brate Fossils, I am enabled to state that the Hunterian specimens of 

 fossil organic remains include, of those belonging to the classes Mam- 

 malia and Aves, 330 1 ; Beptilia and Pisces, 351 2 ; of Invertebrated 

 classes, 2092; the total number being 2773 3 . 



The classification adopted by Hunter in his MS. Catalogue, with his 

 posthumous manuscript on Extraneous Fossils, will appear in the general 

 Preface to be appended to the final volume of the Catalogue now in 

 course of preparation 4 [1855]. 



Meanwhile I propose, at our next meeting, in justice to Hunter, and 



1 [The volume including the descriptions of these fossils was published in 1845.] 



2 [The volume including the descriptions of these fossils was published in 1854.] 



3 [The Editor of the edition of the Hunterian MS. on ' Extraneous Fossils,' 

 hurriedly printed by the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in December 

 1859, states, with characteristic stupidity and indifference to accuracy, " The num- 

 ber of Hunterian Fossils in the collection amounted to 415 " (p. ii. pt. 1), — the precise 

 numbers having been expressly recorded in the Prefaces to the printed Catalogues 

 of 1845, 1854, and 1856.] 



4 [Having accepted the office of Superintendent of the Natural History Depart- 

 ments in the British Museum early in 1856, the Catalogue of the Fossils in the 

 Hunterian Museum passed out of my responsibility and care, and the completion 

 of the concluding volume was confided to Prof. Morris, F.Gr.S. In the preface to 

 that volume, published at the latter part of 1856, no allusion is made to the Hunterian 

 manuscript, which Mr. Clift had, in 1839, formally brought under the notice of the 

 Council and Board of Curators, as an ' Introduction to the Catalogue of Hunter's 

 Collection of Extraneous Fossils,' and which had been more emphatically brought 

 to then* attention by my lectures in March 1855. It was not until their attention 

 had been for the third time called to this manuscript, by my request in October 1859, 

 to append it to the present collection of Hunter's writings, that it was suddenly 

 determined to print it without loss of time ; and a reason assigned which will be 

 found in the Appendix (C.).] 



