Sir Richard Owen : his life and works / by C.W.G. Rohrer.

  • Rohrer, C. W. G. (Caleb Wyand Geeting), 1873-1952
Date:
[1911]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sir Richard Owen : his life and works / by C.W.G. Rohrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Contributions to Zoology. [137] Owen’s contributions to zoological literature are almost as innumerable as the sands of the sea. His first zoological paper, written in 1830, was “ On the Anatomy of the Ourang- outang.” In 1832 Owen published his “ Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus/5 the description of which seemed to have given his mind a bent in a definite direction. This was Owen’s first work which attracted the attention of scientific men. In the same year Owen published a paper “ On the [138] Mammary Glands of the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus ” and another “ On the Generation of Marsupial Animals.” In 1863 Owen published his “ Memoir on the Aye-Aye.” Contributions to Palaeontology. Owen was the first to identify the mammoth, an extinct hairy elephant, and assign it to its proper place in the zoolog- ical world. Owen was also the first to properly describe the Archaeopteryx, an extinct bird possessing reptilian characters and supposed to be the transition link between reptiles and birds. The Megatherium americanum, an extinct ground- sloth from South America, was the subject of considerable controversy until the appearance of Owen’s memoir. Owen’s most notable contributions to palaeontology are con- tained in his monograph on the “ Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand.” Herein Owen describes with characteristic clearness and thoroughness the apteryx, the dinornis, and the notornis, all extinct birds of New Zealand; and in an ap- pendix he describes the extinct dodo of Mauritius, the gar- fowl of Newfoundland, and the solitaire of Rodriguez. Professor Owen described six distinct species of the genus dinornis, ascending respectively from the size of the great bustard to that of the dodo, of the emu and of the ostrich, and finally attaining a stature far surpassing three of the once-deemed most gigantic of birds. This latter is the Dinornis maximus, or great moa, a large struthious bird “ of a heavier and more sluggish species than the ostrich.” Its greatest height, as determined by Professor Owen, was prob- ably sixteen feet.
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