OBITUARY. 465 
thus was not conspicuous in the prize-lists, but he conscientiously 
worked up every subject, and at the same time made substantial 
progress with his studies in zoology—so much so as to attract the 
attention of men like John Goodsir, William Turner, John Cleland, 
and James Young Simpson. The recesses between the sessions he 
often spent with his sisters at St. Andrews, where his natural bent 
found full scope either amongst the sheils of the beach, the ironstone 
nodules of the east rocks, or in other kindred pursuits—such as 
exploring the fauna of Tents Moor, or in hauling a Porpoise out of 
the harbour for study and subsequent maceration. He spent five 
years at the University, graduating in 1862, and at the same time 
receiving a gold medal for his thesis on the Asymmetry of the Plewro- 
nectid@, a subject which his remarkable skill in dissection, his 
patience and his accuracy and taste in drawing, fitted him in every 
way to excel. Goodsir appreciated the talent of his young student and 
made him his Prosector, and then Demonstrator from 1863 to 1866, 
when he received the appointment of Professor of Natural History in 
the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, and the gift of a silver 
dissecting-case from his Edinburgh students; but as the main duty 
was to teach botany to somewhat lively agricultural students, the 
study of the oolitic geology of the neighbourhood was a congenial 
recreation. In 1867 he was chosen as the first Professor of Zoology 
in the Royal College of Science, Dublin, and in the autumn of 1873 
he secured the appointment of Keeper of the Natural History Collec- 
tions in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, a post in which his 
special talents, and more especially his unrivalled capacity for dealing 
with the anatomical structure of fossil fishes, found free play. Yet 
he was not unmindful of the purely zoological side of the Museum, 
and under his management, with the able assistance of Mr. Hagle 
Clarke, great strides were made with mammals, birds, and fishes, as 
well as with the Invertebrates. His kindly aid also was of great 
service in exchanging with other Museums, and both Perth and 
St. Andrews have good reason to remember his valued services in 
this respect. His official and other visits to the Continent gave him 
unique opportunities for extending his knowledge of fossil fishes, 
and, besides visiting Museums, he travelled much in Belgium and 
Germany, hammer in hand, entranced in forest and mountain scenery. 
Besides, he held the Swiney Lectureship in Geology at the British 
Museum for two periods of five years, and acted as external Examiner 
in Zoology in the University of Edinburgh. Many of his memoirs 
were communicated to the Royal Society of Edinbugh, in which he 
