Chair of Zoology at University College, Cardiff: Prof. James Brough

Abstract

AT the opening of the present session, Prof. James Brough entered upon his new duties as professor of zoology and comparative anatomy in University College, Cardiff, a post upon which distinction had been conferred by the personality and prosperous tenure of the late Prof. W. M. Tattersall. The appointment is an interesting one, because Brough's honours degree, taken at Armstrong College, Newcastle upon Tyne, was in geology, and his published researches are almost entirely palæontological. But he he used his geological knowledge with the avowed and persistent aim of interpreting the evolutionary history of the bony fishes, and his researches have already thrown new light on that difficult problem and have proved to be of fundamental importance for the study of the Palæoniscids. To further these studies he has travelled far and wide, adding to his material by collecting in South Africa and Rhodesia, in the Austrian Alps, in northern Italy and in Spitsbergen, studying in London and Edinburgh, in Stockholm, Paris, Frankfort and Milan. His zoological knowledge, reinforced by his palæontology and his own vivid personality, gave verve and imagination to his teaching in the Department of Zoology in the University of Edinburgh, from which he proceeded to Cardiff, and in his earlier post in the University of Manchester. During the War, he has assisted the Ministry of Food by acting as insect infestation inspector for the south-east district of Scotland. Dr. Brough's interest in educational methods and his researches, with which must be linked the studies in the early history of the Amphibia so successfully followed by his wife (Dr. Margaret Steen), promise well for the continued prosperity of the Department of Zoology at Cardiff.