Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London - University Library

32
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
Dr. Charles Henry Gattt was born in the year 1835, went to
Trinity College, at Cambridge University, graduated B.A. in 1859
and M.A. in 1862. He devoted much attention to natural science,
especially zoology, and was elected Fellow of our Society on
the 15th March, 1860 ; two years later he joined the G-eological
Society. In the summer of 1892 he gave an intimation to the
University of St. Andrew's of a gift of ^1000, which he doubled
during the autumn of the same year, for a marine laboratory ; in
1895 he voluntarily added another sum of £500 for fitting up
tanks, engine, and other furniture, which he afterwards supplemented
by a gift of a second sum of =£500. Our late Fellow thus
gave in all £3000 to the laboratory now known as the Gatty
Marine Laboratory, Avhich
the 3rd October, 1896.
was formal)}^ opened by Lord Reay on
Professor M'^Intosh says :
" Previously we had the St. Andrew's
Marine Laboratory at the harbour, and Dr. Gatty and I would
have wished to erect the new one on the site, so fnll of old asso-
ciations, but the wooden building was on a common. We therefore
had to go to University ground 500 yards or so south. The
Government severed its slender financial connections for the
support of the old laboratory under the Fishery Board for Scotland,
and the first British laboratory, though it \^"as only from
=£70 to ,£90 a year, as soon as we ' flitted ' to the new building,
and this after 12.| years' work for the Board."
In recognition of this munificent gift the University of St.
Andrew's conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D.
In his own immediate neighbourhood at East Grin stead he built
and fitted up a hospital for the sick. Living all his life unmarried,
he became towards the close of it somewhat of a recluse and
eccentric in his habits. He died at his Sussex residence, Felbridge
Place, East Grinstead, in December 1903, aged 68.
Carl Gegenbatjr was born in 1826, August 21, and died last
year on the 14th of June. He became a Professor early in life,
holding the Chair of Anatomy for a long period at Jena and for a
much longer period at Heidelberg. From first to last he was a
man of science pure and simple. His autobiographical sketch,
' Erlebtes und Erstrebtes,' by its epigrammatic title promises
something different from this, but apparently what he did with
his life and what his life did with him were factors of existence
in uncommonly little antagonism. His choice of a career was
imperilled indeed for a moment by the unprescient worldly wisdom
of his father. Sixty years ago it may have been difficult to forecast
his chances of making either a great reputation or a modest
livelihood out of natural science. Fortunately, however, the
parental opposition was diverted, so that the young Carl's education
was allo\^ed to follow lines consistent with his tastes and
ambition. He speedily justified his own selection of the field in
which his energies were to be displayed. It was no narrow one.
Among his treatises we find investigations on Pteropoda and