Alexander Gordon Melville
Alexander Gordon Melville (1819–1901) was an Irish comparative anatomist, best known for his work on the dodo. He was Professor of Natural History at Queen's College Galway, from 1849 to 1882. Life Melville graduated M.D. at the University of Edinburgh, and became Demonstrator in Anatomy there. He then moved to the University of Oxford as assistant to Henry Wentworth Acland. He lectured to the Royal Zoological Society. At the 1847 British Association meeting Melville took part in the debate on Lepidosiren, judging it to be an amphibian. Acland did not find Melville easy to work with, and replaced him with Lionel Beale; Melville left Oxford in 1847. It was during this Oxford period that Hugh Edwin Strickland approached Melville about their joint book on the dodo. Melville began work on the anatomical aspects in 1847. The "Oxford head", from John Tradescant's dodo was dissected, as was the "London foot", and the remains of the "Oxford foot", most of what remained of the dodo specimen that had been exhibited in the 18th century. The book's publication provoked a search for fossil evidence of the dodo on Mauritius, to supplement the scanty specimens available. In April 1848 Melville was working with Gideon