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a writer and lecturer he was always logical, cautious, temperate, content could he but spread,, extend, and help and systemize our knowledge of observed facts, convinced that if this be done properly their ultimate teachings become self-evident. His work is of that order which marks the growth of real knowledge and the consequent bettering of mankind, and the thought that there has thus early passed from the ranks one so good and earnest, so well fitted by nature for the responsible task of training the young and susceptible, fills us with sorrows. Parker matriculated at the London University in June, 1868. He was an active member of the New Zealand Institute, to which he communicated several papers, and he became in turn secretary and president of its Otago branch. Before these bodies, and elsewhere in New Zealand, he delivered addresses which will linger in the memory of his hearers and those who have read them. There may be especially mentioned an address delivered before the Otago University Debating Society on the 17th September, 1892, upon " The Weak Point in our University System," in reality an eloquent appeal for post-graduate study. Proceeding to classify an average assemblage of students into " the able, the mediocre, and the stupid," he remarked that " the only duty of members of the University towards the third class appeared to be that of imposing a sufficiently severe entrance examination to keep them from wasting their own time and their parents' money in the vain attempt to train to purely intellectual pursuits an organism which nature intended to make its way by virtue of muscle and mother wit." A more ingenious defence of an examination system could hardly be imagined. It is preceded by the shrewd remark that " the republic of science and letters is an aristocratic, not a democratic, republic." Parker was evidently of opinion that what the world terms breeding and feeling count for a great deal in the end, and the whole context of his address is apposite to the share he took in the work of organization of the University of New Zealand, which led at least to a humanising of its syllabus in biology. . . . The keynote of Parker's life-work is his connection with Huxley, and in testimony to his devotion to his great chief (" The General," as he loved to call him) there remains the delightful dedication of his " Lessons in Elementary Biology." Parker entered Huxley's service as demonstrator in biology at South Kensington in 1872, immediately after the conclusion of the memorable course of instruction there given, now historical as having marked the introduction of rational methods into the teaching of natural science. In the conduct of that course Huxley, as is well known, secured the aid of leading British biologists of the time. It was, however, reserved for Parker to fill the more important role of lieutenant in the development of the Huxleian system, and to assist in carrying it beyond the experimental stage. At the time of his appointment laboratory appliances were lacking, and a practical teaching museum, based on the type system, was a desideratum. Under instruction to supply these needs, Parker in due course entered upon the task with a will, his only materials a free hand and an early set of proofs of Huxley and Martin's " Elementary Biology " (with the final revision of which he was largely intrusted, since the junior author was leaving for Baltimore) ; and in carrying the task to a successful issue he founded the first practical biological museum or teaching collection on the now generally adopted type system, the prototype of all those subsequently established at Home and abroad, in some cases even to the measurements of the furniture. The Huxleian method of laboratory instruction, in the course of its development at headquarters, has witnessed no change on the zoological side at all comparable to the inversion in the order of the work originally prescribed— i.e., the substitution of the anatomy of a vertebrate for the microscopic examination of a unicellular organism as the opening study, and this we owe entirely to Parker. As one privileged at the time to play a minor part, I well recall the determination in Parker's mind that the change was desirable, and in Huxley's that it was not. Again and again did Parker appeal in vain, until at last, on the morning of the 2nd October, 1878, he triumphed. Dyer and Vines were Parker's more immediate associates in the early work of development of the Huxleian laboratory system; and among the persons who studied under him as it progressed, now occupying prominent positions in the biological world, may be named F. E. Beddard, A. G. Bourne, G. C. Crick, J. J. Fletcher, Patrick Geddes, Angelo Heilprin, C. H. Hurst, C. Lloyd-Morgan, Daniel Morris, B. D. Oldham, F. H. Osborn, W. B. Scott, T. W. Shore, Oldfield Thomas, and H. Marshall Ward. Parker's first paper ("On the Stomach of the Freshwater Crayfish ") and his first book (" Zootomy ") were alike a direct outcome of the undertaking, and the scheme for his " Lessons in Elementary Biology," formulated while still he was in London, was similarly begotten of his experience during its development, which oft formed the topic of conversation as he and I in the late seventies sat working side by side. Nor must it be forgotten that Parker rendered Huxley commendable aid in the production of his wonderful book on " The Crayfish." I venture to think that, in recognition of all this, Parker has established a claim to distinction in connection with the educational work of his great master second to that of none other; and when it is remembered that the unparalleled activity among botanists and zoologists during the last two decades has rendered it impossible for one man to efficiently teach the two subjects from a professorial chair in the manner originally laid down under the Huxleian dispensation, Parker's name will occupy a unique position in the history of this as that of the only man prominently associated with its inception who taught both subjects to the end of his career. To the task of founding the Huxleian teaching collection, moreover, is due Parker's interest in the work of the preparator, which led to his being the first person to successfully prepare and mount in a condition fit for prolonged display cartilaginous skeletons in a dry state. Under Parker's curatorship the Otago Museum advanced by leaps and bounds, and while to his reputation as a teacher and an investigator he thus added distinction as a conservator and administrator in zoology, he attained also a reputation in botany, both as a manipulator and discoverer, He came upon the botanical platform at a time when Alfred Bennett and Dyer were at work upon the English translation of the third edition of Sach's monumental " Lehrbuch der Botanik," and when the methods of that great man, already introduced into Britain by McNab, were by these botanists and

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