Page:Biographies of Scientific Men.djvu/111

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OWEN
77

to the Théâtre Français, but did not stay to the end of the performance, stating that "the statue of Voltaire in the salle was worth all the money."

In 1832 Owen published his famous Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus, "which placed its author, at a bound, in the front rank of anatomical monographers," says the late Professor Huxley. "There is nothing better in the Mémoires sur les Mollusques; I would even venture to say nothing so good; … certainly in the sixty years that have elapsed since the publication of this remarkable monograph, it has not been excelled." The Pearly Nautilus (Nautilus pompilus) is interesting not only on its own account, but because of the large number of its fossil allies, and Owen won for himself an honourable place among naturalists by the masterly way in which he explained its structure and affinities. In his work he demonstrated for the first time the structure of the extinct group of cuttle-fishes to which the ammonites belonged, and to this his Memoir forms one of the classics of palæontology. It was translated into French by Milne Edwards, and into German by Oken.

Between 1831-34 Owen published thirty-seven papers, besides the catalogues of the Hunterian collection; these include papers on the anatomy and osteology of the orang-outang, beaver, suricate acouchy, Tibet bear, garmet, armadillo, seal, kangaroo, tapir, crocodile, stomapodous crustacea, ceropithecus, ariel toucan, flamingo,