1893] 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



19 



Clift, Curator of the Hunterian Museum. In 1836 he succeeded Sir 

 Charles Bell as Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the College 

 of Surgeons, being appointed by the college in that year as the first 

 Hunterian Professor. Professor Owen's connection with the College 

 of Surgeons ceased in 1856, on his being appointed Superintendent of 

 the Natural History Departments (Zoology, Geology, Mineralogy) in 

 the British Museum. He has advocated the provision of adequate 

 galleries for the exposition of these collections in his " Discourse on 

 the Extent and Aims of a National Museum of Natural History." 

 For some years he was Lecturer on Palaeontology in the Govern- 

 ment School of Mines, Jermyn Street, and Fullerian Professor of 

 Physiology in the Royal Institution of Great Britain, but was com- 

 pelled, on account of failing health, to resign these offices.' Amongst 

 the first great works which he undertook were the " Descriptive and 

 Illustrated Catalogue of the Specimens of Physiology and Compara- 

 tive Anatomy," the " Catalogue of the Natural History," that of the 

 " Osteology," and that of the " Fossil Organic Remains," preserved 

 in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Discerning in a 

 fragment of fossil bone from New Zealand, submitted to him in 1839, 

 evidence of a bird more gigantic than the ostrich, Professor Owen 

 published an account of it ; transmitted copies to New Zealand, and 

 obtained evidence in confirmation and extension of his idea, which 

 occupies many successive parts of the "Transactions" of the Zoolo- 

 gical Society. In that for 1855 he propounds his theory of the 

 extinction of species on the principle of the " contest of existence " 

 through the operation of extraneous influences. The genera of birds 

 thus lost by "natural rejection " are Dinornis, Aptornis, Notornis, 

 Cnemiornis, . &c. Concluding in the work " On the Nature of Limbs " 

 his researches on the unity of plan of animal organisation, the author 

 is led to regard species as due to secondary cause or law, continuously 

 operating and producing them successively. Professor Owen has 

 written many other works. His later researches have been on the 

 extinct animals of our principal colonies. In 1876 his work on " The 

 Fossil Reptilia of South Africa," with seventy plates, was published 

 by the trustees of the British Museum. In 1877 Professor Owen 

 brought out, at his own cost, a work " On the Fossil Mammals of 

 Australia, and on the Extinct Marsupials of England," two volumes, 

 4-to, with 132 plates and many woodcuts. Pie is also the author of an 

 enlarged work "On the Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand." 

 He was one of the founders, and first president of the Microscopal 

 Society : is a Fellow or Associate of most of the learned societies or 

 scientific academies at home and abroad ; has received the Cross of 

 the Legion of Honour ; is a Chevalier of the Order of Merit of Prussia, 

 and one of the Eight Foreign Associates of the French Institute. He 



