OBITUARY. Ill 



Francis Maitland Balfour was there, beginning those classical 

 researches in Embryology, which were to give England the lead in 

 this branch of science. The late Sir G. M. Humphrey was Professor 

 of Anatomy, but his interests extended to every branch of Verte- 

 brates, as his work on Comparative Myology and on the Origin of 

 the Paired Fins amply testifies. Alfred Newton had comparatively 

 recently been appointed Professor of Zoology ; he was not a mor- 

 phologist, but he had been through the evolution controversies, and 

 was a charming and convincing exponent of Darwin's theories. 

 About this time commenced the association of the University with 

 Anton Dohrn's Zoological Station at Naples, which has continued 

 unbroken to the present day. 



Our undergraduate quickly fell under the influence of these men, 

 but for him the greatest attraction was not their lectures, but the 

 practical classes held in connection with every course of lectures 

 delivered by the younger teachers. To convince himself he required 

 to see every fact which he was taught. In Foster's practical course 

 on embryology he saw the recapitulation of supposed ancestral stages 

 in many vertebrate animals, and this gave such substance and de- 

 finiteness to his ideas of evolution that he decided to throw in his lot 

 with pure science. He recalled with warm appreciation the first 

 course of lectures delivered by Gaskell, and this pleasant recollection 

 was never effaced by his disagreement with him on the thorny 

 question of the origin of vertebrates. 



Sedgwick had most joyous recollections of his undergraduate 

 days, numbering among his friends several of the present leaders in 

 the different branches of biology. The late Prof. Milnes-Marshall 

 he saw frequently, and among his happiest memories were the times 

 he spent with Dr. A. S. Lea, the biochemist, both in Trinity and in 

 their annual camp in the Fens. 



Sedgwick took his degree with the highest honours in 1877, and 

 at once threw himself into embryological research. He was intimate 

 with F. M. Balfour, for whom he conceived an affection almost dog- 

 like in its devotion. He soon became acquainted with the late 

 Prof. Moseley, of Oxford, and Sir E. Eay Lankester, for whose work 

 he had the greatest admiration. His first work was done in 

 collaboration with Balfour, showing the existence of a head-kidney 

 in the embryo chick, and the connection in development between the 

 Miillerian and Wolffian ducts, ending with the discussion of the. 

 homologies of the excretory system in Vertebrates. This he followed 

 up by three further papers on the development and homologies of 



