xli 



FBEDEEICK WOLLASTON HUTTON, 1836—1905. 



Captain E. W. Hutton, whose name has been so long and so intimately 

 connected with the Natural History of New Zealand, died at sea on 

 October 27, 1905, while on his way back to the Colony after a short stay in 

 England. He was born in 1836, at Gate Burton, Lincolnshire, of which 

 village his father was Eector. At the age of fourteen he was a midship- 

 man on a ship trading to Calcutta, but he soon left the sea, and became 

 a student at King's Col]ege, London. Before the age of twenty he received 

 a commission in the 23rd Eoyal Welsh Fusiliers, and soon saw active 

 service in the Crimea, and afterwards in India during the Indian Mutiny,. 

 where he was present at the Belief of Lucknow and in other engage- 

 ments. His bent for science was already showing itself in various ways, and 

 in 1860, on his return to England, he was elected a Fellow of the Geological 

 Society, and gained considerable practical acquaintance in that science with 

 the officers of the Geological Survey in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. 

 Fortunately for New Zealand, Captain Hutton, in search of fresh fields of 

 work, turned his attention to that Colony, and, retiring from the army, 

 arrived there in 1866. Soon he became attached to the Geological Survey of 

 New Zealand, and commenced that series of researches into the geology of 

 the Colony which lasted, with some breaches of continuity, throughout his 

 life. In 1871 he was appointed Assistant Geologist, and removed from 

 Auckland to Wellington ; in 1873 he became Provincial Geologist of Otago 

 and came to Dunedin, and before long, in conjunction with the late Professor 

 Ulrich, he published an important work on the geology of Otago. 



But Captain Hutton was not a man of one science only. During this time 

 he had already been working also on the zoology of New Zealand, and when 

 the position of Provincial Geologist lapsed with the abolition of the provinces 

 in 1876, he was appointed Professor of Natural Science at the Otago Univer- 

 sity, and had charge of the Otago Museum, which had been designed and 

 built under his device and direction, and which still contains so much 

 evidence of the work that he did at that time. About four years afterwards 

 he removed to Christchurch as Professor of Biology at Canterbury College, 

 and soon began to instil into his students some of his own enthusiasm for 

 natural science, as he had already done in Dunedin. Here, while continuing 

 his researches on geological and zoological subjects, he found it necessary, for 

 the sake of his students, to take up the study of botany, and with his natural 

 clearness of insight and ability to grasp readily the essential details of a fresh 

 science, he soon made himself familiar with his subject, and a little pamphlet 

 which he published on the structure of the common weed " shepherd's purse ' 

 received favourable notice at the time. 



He continued to occupy the chair of Biology at Canterbury College till the 



