232 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1896. 



said, " The species makers are caviare to me." But be himself did 

 not escape the fate of most biologists in the making of species. 



I have given mj' impressions of his disinclination to study species 

 elsewhere :' " In competent hands the elucidation of species is not, as 

 it has opprobriously been said to be, a dullard's task of taking an 

 inventory of nature, but the study of the ultimate forms which those 

 organisms assume which breed true. The shifting of color schemes, 

 the exhibition of the effects of food and climate on size iu whole or 

 in parts, and of other causes by which minute differentiations are 

 started and maintained, are of unending interest, and worthy of the 

 best powers of the naturalist. If Ryder had been more closely iden- 

 tiOed than he was with the careers of the great academicians who 

 had preceded him, it would in no whit have detracted from the 

 value of his philosophical labors. One cannot but regret, if for no 

 other reason than for his health's sake, that he discontinued those 

 fruitful excursions to our woods, ponds and rivers, by which he con- 

 tributed so notably to our micro-fauna." 



While Dr. Ryder did not identify himself with zoology, his repu- 

 tation may be said to rest in great part upon his labors on the 

 morphology of the early stages of the development of fishes. This 

 work, for the most part, represents that accomplished by him as an 

 expert on the Fish Commission. His interest in the subject of the 

 nature of species was, however, a deep-seated one, and he was con- 

 stantly reviewing masses of data which he had accumulated in at- 

 tempting to explain the tenets of evolution. That these attempts 

 should have been largely in the direction of dynamics was to be ex- 

 pected, since he was enabled to apply to the problems his talent for 

 mechanics and invention. He also had at hand the conclusions of 

 many contemporaries who were with him eagerly seeking for a 

 hypothesis of evolution not embraced in that of natural selection. 



As early as 1874, he wrote : " I think I have discovered a law 

 which offers a way to the solution of the variation of forms in animal 

 life. This law I propose to call the law of the dynamics of phylo- 

 geny. In reading over Herbert Spencer's brilliant essay on the cir- 

 culation of sap in plants and the formation of wood, I saw the solu- 

 tion of the problem. Here is field enough for a Darwin. I almost 

 shrink from the task when I consider its magnitude. Cleavage of 

 muscular fibre; the processes of bone ; the arrangement of the bony 

 layers ; the change of form and length and of position of bony pro- 



* Memorial Pamphlet. 



