this unpublished, and in a proposal to unite the Herrings and Pikes into a single group, the “Clupesoces,” he had further given promise of a new system, based on the study of the structure of the fins, jaws, and reproductive organs of the Bony Fishes, the classifications of which are still largely chaotic, which would have been as revolutionary as it was rational.  New terms both in taxonomy and anatomy were contemplated, and in part framed.  His published terms “Elasmo-” and “Cysto-arian” are the adjective form of two—­far-reaching and significant—­which give an idea of what was to have come.  Similarly, the spinose fin-rays were to have been termed “acanthonemes,” the branching and multiarticulate “arthronemes,” and those of the more elementary and “adipose fin” type “protonemes”:  and had he lived to complete the task, I question whether it would not have excelled his earlier achievements.

The Rabbit was to have been the subject of the first of the aforementioned books, and in the desire to get at the full meaning of problems which arose during its progress, he was led to digress into a general anatomical survey of the Rodentia, and in testimony to this there remain five or six books of rough notes bearing dates 1880 to 1884, and a series of finished pencil-drawings, which, as works of art and accurate delineations of fact, are among the most finished productions of his hand.  In the same manner his contemplated work upon the Vertebrata led him during 1879-1880 to renewed investigation of the anatomy of some of the more aberrant orders.  Especially as concerning the Marsupialia and Edentata was this the case, and to the end in view he secured living specimens of the Vulpine Phalanger, and purchased of the Zoological Society the Sloths and Ant-eaters which during that period died in their Gardens.  These he carefully dissected, and he leaves among his papers a series of incomplete notes (fullest as concerning the Phalanger and Cape Anteater [Orycteropus] ([I was privileged to assist in the dissection of the latter animal, and well do I remember how, when by means of a blow-pipe he had inflated the bladder, intent on determining its limit of distensibility, the organ burst, with unpleasant results, which called forth the remark] “I think we’ll leave it at that!")), which were never finished up.

They prove that he intended the production of special monographs on the anatomy of these peculiar mammalian forms, as he did on members of other orders which he had less fully investigated, and on the more important groups of fishes alluded to in the earlier part of my letter; and there seems no doubt, from the collocation of dates and study of the order of the events, that his memorable paper “On the Application of the Laws of Evolution to the arrangement of the Vertebrata, and more particularly of the Mammalia,” published in the “Proceedings of the Zoological Society” for 1880,—­the most masterly among his scientific theses—­was the direct outcome of this intention,