'xHi 



If one quality more than another predominated in the well-balanced 

 faculties of this excellent man, it was his modesty with freedom from pre- 

 tension. This is strikingly displayed in words of his own, written down, 

 but never spoken, on the occasion of his receiving the Royal Medal 

 awarded him, as already mentioned, in 1856. We give them with the 

 hope that they may serve as an incitement to others, who think humbly 

 of themselves, to follow his example. 



" More than the usual period allotted to one generation has long passed 

 away since, through the circumstance of my being appointed Surgeon to 

 a small body of'Arctic explorers, I had to travel over a country reaching 

 from the great American lakes to the islands of the Arctic Sea, and embra- 

 cing more than the fourth of the distance from the equator to the pole, 

 which had never before been visited by a professed naturalist. I perceived at 

 once the magnitude of the field, and comprehended at a glance that it was 

 far beyond my grasp. The only previous training I had was the little 

 natural science that I had learnt at my northern Alma Mater as a colla- 

 teral branch of my medical education, but I thought that I could at least 

 record what I saw j and I determined so to do as intelligently as I could 

 and without exaggeration, hoping in this way to furnish facts on which the 

 leaders of science might reason, and thus promote the progress of Natural 

 History to the extent of my-limited ability. This was the rule I followed 

 during the eight years that I passed in those countries actually engaged in 

 the several expeditions." His concluding words, too, we are tempted to 

 give, distinctive as they are of a quality of his illustrious friend. Sir John 

 Franklin, which, with other gracious ones, gained him the regard of all 

 who had the happiness of serving under him. 



" I cannot forbear adding one word to my thanks for the very high 

 honour which I have appeared before you to receive — it is an expression 

 of mournful regret that your late member, my old and dear friend and 

 commanding officer in the Expeditions of Discovery, does not survive to wit- 

 ness this day. He would have rejoiced with unmixed satisfaction at your 

 appreciation of my labours. From him I received every assistance in col- 

 lecting specimens that was in his power to give ; his sympathy encouraged 

 me, and his claims which, as commanding officer, he might have to the 

 reputation of whatever v/as done by one of his subordinates, he honourably 

 and cheerfully ceded to him who did the work, in my case as in others. So 

 that contributions v/ere made to science, no personal interests were allowed 

 to interfere." 



Besides the works already mentioned, he was the author of the ' Fauna 

 Boreali-Americana,' of Zoological Appendices to the Voyages of Parry, 

 Ross, and Back, of Zoological Reports and Contributions to the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, of which Association he was 

 an old member and a regular attendant at its meetings, and the article 

 "Ichthyology" in the last edition of the EncyclopBedia Britannica. 



He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1825 ; he received the 



