300 
PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. F.R.S. 
past—Marine Biological Stations. These, which have been 
established at Naples, Granton, Plymouth, and elsewhere, 
are but the natural development from the simple Marine 
Aquarium, with which the names of Gosse, from the 
biological, and Warrington, from the chemical side, will be 
inseparably connected. And it is impossible to estimate the 
benefit which the scientific knowledge and practical good that 
these Stations will, by discoveries in embryological science 
and probably in economic fish culture, in the future develop. 
To return to Mr. Gosse’s work—the appearance of the 
“ Actinologia,” with its gorgeously coloured, but accurately 
drawn plates, and faithful descriptions, was a perfect 
revelation. The public, and especially those who had a 
sufficiently cultivated taste to understand it, were until its 
appearance scarcely aware that such exquisite creatures lived 
with complicated organisation, variety of form, and brilliant 
colouration as therein described. Very modest indeed was 
his estimate of his own work. In the preface, after generously 
thanking those Naturalists who had assisted him by 
specimens, or facts, or by verifying localities, he says:—“The 
result is that seventy-five species find their places in these 
pages, five of which are merely indicated, leaving seventy 
good species, exclusive of the Lucernarida. Of these, twenty - 
four only are described in Johnston—the rest of his species 
being either synonyms or resting on insufficient evidence. 
Fifty-four British species have been examined by myself, 
perhaps a larger number than have come under the notice of 
any other naturalist; by far the greater part in life and 
health; and thirty-four of these have been added to the 
British Fauna by myself.” 
In his splendid little “ Manual of Marine Zoology,” 
1865-6 (wherein there is a figure of every genus, drawn by 
himself, mostly from life), and which text-book is still highly 
valued by students, although some of its classification has 
been necessarily superseded by recent discoveries, he tells us 
the history of its origin :—“ It is now about four-and-twenty 
years ago, that in a land far remote from this, I began the 
study of systematic Zoology, with Insects. It is, beyond all 
comparison, the most extensive class of animals, in fact, all 
but boundless; but in my ignorance I attacked it entire and 
indivisible, collecting and trying hard to identify everything 
that I found from the Cicindela to the Podura. I had not an 
atom of assistance towards the identification, but the brief, 
highly condensed, and technical generic characters of 
Linnaeus’s “ Systema Naturae,” over which I puzzled my 
brains, specimens in hand, many an hour .... I have 
