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Obituary Notice of Fellow deceased. 



but with this difference, that Garrett's specimens and drawings went to the 

 Museum Godeffroy, whilst Colonel Drummond-Hay's specimens were lost by 

 the thirst for alcohol of a man left in charge during the absence of the Colonel 

 in Britain. Portions of Dr. Giinther's work, which was undertaken on 

 condition that a selection of the fishes, including all the types, should be 

 presented to the British Museum, were issued in 1873 and 1881. A long 

 blank, mainly due to financial reasons, then occurred, and it was fully a 

 quarter of a century later before Friedrichsen, the publisher, wrote to 

 Dr. Giinther asking if he could proceed, since Dr. Martin Godeffroy had now 

 advanced funds. Thus, after his retirement from office, the veteran ichthyo- 

 logist was enabled to complete his great task in 1909 and 1911. This fine 

 work could only have been accomplished by one with an encyclopaedic 

 knowledge of fishes and their synonymy, and in touch with the vast 

 collections in the British Museum ; and the gorgeous coloration of many of 

 the fishes and their interesting habits make the work of special interest 

 and value. 



Having to re-write the article on " Ichthyology " in the Eighth Edition of 

 the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' originally prepared by Sir John Bichardson, 

 Dr. Giinther took the opportunity of publishing an 'Introduction to the 

 Study of Eishes ' (1880), a treatise which, in limited compass, places before 

 the student the history and literature of the subject, the structure, growth, 

 and variation of fishes, their distribution and systematic relations. This 

 work is invaluable to the student and ichthyologist, and is especially interest- 

 ing in those chapters dealing with the distribution of fishes, and the problems 

 opened up by the appearance of identical families, genera, and species in 

 distant continents, such as, for instance, Galaxias, in Southern Australia, New 

 Zealand, and the southern parts of South America. A German translation 

 of this work was published in 1886. 



"When elected to preside over the Biological Section of the British 

 Association in those palmy days (1880) when zoologists, botanists, physio- 

 logists, anthropologists, and the rest all fell under this head, he chose as the 

 subject of his address that which his predecessor, Dr. J. E. Gray, had chosen 

 before him (1864?), viz., "Museums: their Use and Improvement," and his 

 experienced remarks were worthy of the theme. He made three groups of 

 museums — (1) National, (2) Provincial, and (3) Educational — though these 

 pass into each other and there may be hybrids between them. He gave an 

 outline of the new Natural History Museum at South Kensington, pointing- 

 out that in this, the greatest National Museum, it would be impracticable to 

 group the recent with the fossil forms, however strongly the principle of 

 studying the two may be held, for all agree that zoologists and botanists 

 should not be content with the study of the recent fauna and flora, nor 

 should palaeontologists carry on their researches without due reference to the 

 living forms. In the museum two series are necessary, viz., those illustrating 

 the leading points of popular a,nd scientific interest, and, secondly, the study- 

 series. He also emphasised the construction of cases of metal as a substitute 



