John D. Godman, an American naturalist, born in Annapolis, Md., Dec. 20, 1794, died in Germantown, Pa., April 17, 1830. He was apprenticed to a printer in Baltimore, but at the age of 20 enlisted in the navy and was present at the defence of Fort HcHenry. After the war he studied medicine, and practised till 1821, when he became professor in the medical college of Ohio at Cincinnati, and commenced there the "Western Quarterly Reporter." In 1822 he removed to Philadelphia and devoted himself to the science of anatomy, of which in 1826 he became professor in Rutgers medical school, New York; but he soon resigned and went to the West Indies for his health, and on his return settled in Germantown. He prepared the zoological articles for the "Encyclopaedia Americana" as far as the end of the letter C, and contributed to various scientific periodicals. His principal work is his "American Natural History" (3 vols. 8vo, Philadelphia, 1823-'8), besides which he published an "Account of some Irregularities of Structure and Morbid Anatomy," "Bell's Anatomy," with notes, "Anatomical Investigations," and "Rambles of a Naturalist."