It might have been added with perfect truth that this series of the detached homologous bones of different animals is of equal value and importance to both the palæontologist and the evolutionist; since with its assistance the former has a ready means of ascertaining the nearest relationships of any fossil bone that may be brought under his notice, while the latter is able to observe the modifications that any particular bone has undergone in different groups of animals. He may notice, for instance, the elongation and slenderness distinctive of the humerus, or arm-bone, of the bat, and contrast it with the short and broad contour characterising the same bone in the mole, while he may observe the elongation of some of the bones of the hind-limbs distinctive of jumping mammals, and their almost total disappearance in the whales and dolphins. If the preparation of this series of specimens (which appears to have been closely connected with his lectures on the osteology of the Mammalia, and their subsequent incorporation in the well-known volume noticed in the sequel) had been the sole limit of the work accomplished by Flower, it would still have been sufficient to entitle him to the gratitude of posterity. It was while engaged in the development of the collections of this museum that Flower made his important observations on the homologies and mode of succession of the teeth of various groups of mammals, and more especially the marsupials. Here, too, it was that he undertook the investigations which led to his publication of a new scheme of classification for the Carnivora; and it was likewise during his Conservatorship that he published his valuable series of observations upon the comparative anatomy of the mammalian liver. These and other kindred subjects may, however, better be considered at greater length in a later chapter. It must suffice therefore, to add in this connection that during Flower’s term of office the unrivalled series of human skeletons and skulls underwent a very marked and important increase.