C. R. Austin has an international reputation for his work on mammalian fertilisation. He was the first to describe many of the structural and chemical properties of both eggs and spermatozoa and the changes occurring during fertilisation including, simultaneous with M. C. Chang, the phenomenon of capacitation. He then showed the association of this with changes in the acrosome and the release of hyaluronidase. Studies of the arrival rate of spermatozoa at the site of fertilisation and of polyspermy and the blocks to it, changed concepts of the factors involved. His conclusions can be taken as general since many species were studied.