The President's Address . By A. I). Michael. 
19 
parative osteologist, or one who had the subject more thoroughly at his 
lingers’ ends, ever lived. He was born at his father’s farm at Dogs- 
thorpe, near Peterborough, on June 23rd, 1823. Village schooling at 
Dogsthorpe and three-quarters of a year at Peterborough Grammar 
School prepared him for an apprenticeship, at 15 years of age, to Mr. 
Woodroffe, a chemist at Stamford. While there he usually rose several 
hours before his morning’s work began, and scoured the neighbourhood 
for botanical specimens ; thus, in two summers, he formed a collection 
of 500 species. He had already been attracted to anatomy, and without 
any instruction whatever, he made skeletons of many animals. Three 
years afterwards he was apprenticed to Mr. Costal, a medical practitioner 
at Market Overton. In December 1844 he entered Charing Cross 
Hospital as a medical student. He subsequently became prosector at 
Dr Todd’s lectures at King’s College. He qualified in 1849, and com- 
menced practice at Tachbrook Street, Pimlico. 
He was elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 1865, and in the 
following year he received the Eoyal Medal for his researches in the 
developmental osteology, or embryonal morphology, of Vertebrates. In 
1874 he was appointed one of the Hunterian Professors of Comparative 
Anatomy. In 1885 he received the Bayly Medal from the Eoyal College 
i f Physicians. As a draughtsman, Prof. Parker particularly excelled, 
and the value of his memoirs was greatly enhanced by the excellence of 
the plates. In 1862 the Eay Society published the ‘Introduction to the 
Study of the Foraminifera,’ which he wrote in conjunction with Dr. 
Carpenter and Prof. Jonis; and in 1868 the same Society published his 
monograph ‘ On the structure and development of the shoulder-girdle 
and sternum in Vertebrata.’ In 1875 he, together with the late Mr. G. 
T. Bettany, brought out a work on ‘ The Morphology of the Skull.’ He, 
in conjunction with Prof. A. Newton, wrote the article “Birds” in the 
‘Encyclopaedia Britannica,’ ninth edition, 1875. In 1885 he published 
the Hunterian lectures which he gave in 1884 under the title of ‘On 
Mammalian Descent.’ In vol. i. (1884) of the ‘ Zoology of the 
‘ Challenger ’ he wrote ti e section on the Development of the Green 
Turtle. In the Proceedings and Transactions of the Eoyal, Linnean, and 
Zoological Societies, as well as in the ‘Annals and Mag.,’ the ‘ Zoologist,’ 
and other scientific periodicals, will be found many monographs and 
papers by him on the morphology, chiefly cranial, of Vertebrates. He 
died suddenly on 3rd July, 1890. 
Peter Martin Duncan, M.B., (Bond.), F.E.S. 
President 1881 - 2 - 3 , 
Prof. Duncan was the twentieth President ; he was born at Twickenham 
in 1824 and educated at the Grammar School there, and afterwards at a 
school in Switzerland. In 1842 he entered the Medical Department of 
King’s College. He practised his profession of medicine at Eochester, 
Colchester, and Blackheath, but his taste for original research induced him 
to abandon the medical profession. In 1870 he was appointed Professor of 
Geology at King’s College, which appointment he held till his death. He 
was one of the secretaries cf the Geological Society from 1864 to 1870, and 
c 2 
