Owen, Sir Richard

Sir Richard (1804-1892), a noted English zoologist. He was educated as a surgeon and held important positions in various London institutions of surgery. In 1856 he was placed in charge of the natural history collections of the British Museum. He is to be credited with their arrangement in the new quarters at South Kensington. He wrote a number of authoritative works, as History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds, Fossil Remains of Extinct Mammals of Australia, and Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand. It is said that he could give a shrewd guess at the size and form of a quadruped from seeing a single tooth. His knowledge of anatomy was such that, when a bone from New Zealand was brought to him, he was able to say it was a bone from the leg of a bird of the ostrich kind, only larger. He even ventured to sketch this bird, then unknown to science. Subsequent discoveries of bones confirmed his shrewd inference. His life is of interest. See Dinornis; British Museum