134 Biographical Sketch of Mr H. E. Strickland. 



the Natural System in Zoology and Botany," — in which he 

 displayed a great knowledge of the forms of animal and vege- 

 table life. In the reports of the British Association for 1843 

 he published a paper " On the Natural Affinities of the Inses- 

 sorial Order of Birds;"" and again, in the " Magazine of Natural 

 History," vol. ii., — " Observations on the Affinities and Analo- 

 gies of Organized Beings." 



It must be obvious, that the labours to which we have al- 

 luded imply an immense amount of industry, — but in the 

 midst of all his practical investigations Mr Strickland found 

 time for purely literary work. Thus, in 1847, he undertook 

 to edit for the Ray Society a work, the collection of materials 

 for which had cost Prof. Agassiz many years of labour, en- 

 titled " Bibliographia Zoologise et Geologise." Three volumes 

 of this great work are published, and the fourth and last is 

 now in the hands of the printer. Mr Strickland's labour 

 here was not merely that of editing — it embraced the contri- 

 bution of a large mass of additional matter, amounting to a 

 third or fourth of the whole. He spared no pains to make 

 this work complete ; — and it must ever be regarded by the 

 zoologist and the geologist as a most valuable gift to the 

 sciences which they cultivate. 



On the occurrence of the illness of Dr Buckland, and his 

 withdrawal from the duties of the chair of Geology at Ox- 

 ford, — every one felt the propriety of inviting Mr Strickland 

 to deliver lectures in his place. Though young for so impor- 

 tant a post, and with a reputation in other departments of 

 science, he was found able to sustain the fame of his pre- 

 decessor in this, — and brought to bear with great advantage 

 the stores of his varied knowledge upon a science which is 

 always susceptible of influence and amplification from the 

 principles of other departments of science, however distant 

 from it they may at first sight appear. The Reports of the 

 British Association, the Transactions of the Geological 

 Society, the papers of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society of London, and of the London and Edinburgh Philo- 

 sophical Magazine, all testify to Mr Strickland's activity as a 

 geologist. They contain a mass of valuable observations 

 both on palaeontology and on the physical structures of rocks 



