Sir William Henry Flower, K.C.B., LL.D., D.C.L., late director of the Natural History Museum, and president of the Royal Zoological Society

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Macmillan and Company, Limited, 1904 - 274 pages

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Page 267 - Flower (WH) — AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE MAMMALIA. Being the Substance of the Course of Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1870.
Page 58 - My work is now (1859) nearly finished; but as it will take me many more years to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract. I have more especially been induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is now studying the natural history of the Malay archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have on the origin of species.
Page 130 - Without any shadow of doubt, amidst this vertigo of shows and politics, I settle myself ever the firmer in the creed, that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with, accepting our actual companions and circumstances, however humble or odious, as the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole pleasure for us.
Page 178 - I cannot refrain from saying a word upon the sadly-neglected art of taxidermy, which continues to fill the cases of most of our museums with wretched and repulsive caricatures of mammals and birds, out of all natural proportions, shrunken here and bloated there, and in attitudes absolutely impossible for the creature to have assumed while alive. Happily there may be seen occasionally, especially where amateurs of artistic taste and good knowledge of natural history have devoted themselves to the...
Page 187 - ... man it is otherwise. They have never so far separated as to answer to the physiological definition of species. All races are fertile one with another, though perhaps in different degrees. Hence new varieties have constantly been formed, not only by the segmentation, as it were, of a portion of one of the old stocks, but also by various combinations of those already established.
Page 178 - ... absolutely impossible for the creature to have assumed while alive. Happily there may be seen occasionally, especially where amateurs of artistic taste and good knowledge of natural history have devoted themselves to the subject, examples enough to show that an animal can be converted after death, by a proper application of taxidermy, into a real lifelike representation of the original, perfect in form, proportions, and attitude, and almost, if not quite, as valuable for conveying information...
Page 180 - ... in the great educational movement of the age. A museum is like a living organism — it requires continual and tender care. It must grow, or it will perish; and the cost and labour required to maintain it in a state of vitality is not yet by any means fully realised or provided for, either in our great national establishments or in our smaller local institutions.
Page 80 - have you been voting for C ? " — " Yes, indeed, I have," replied the Dean. " Oh, I thought the priests were always opposed to the prophets," said Huxley. " Ah ? " replied the Dean, with that well-known twinkle in his eye, and the sweetest of smiles. " But, you see, I do not believe in his prophecies, and some people say I am not much of a priest.
Page 21 - OUR bugles sang truce ; for the nightcloud had lowered, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky ; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered — The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
Page 186 - ... only the present, but the past distribution of the races of man upon the earth, and the mode and order in which they have been derived from one another. The difficulties in the way of applying zoological principles to the classification of man are vastly greater than in the case of most animals ; the problem being, as we shall see, one of much greater complexity.

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