282 Professor Th. Bischoff /;* Reply to Ur. Martin Barry. 



must be less known, I must solemnly repel Dr. Barry's in- 

 sinuations. 



In the first place, as regards dates: — Dr. Barry appeals to 

 the circumstance that his Researches were published in the 

 Philosophical Transactions for the years 1838, 39, and 40. 

 It is however to be remarked that it is always a considerable 

 time after their publication that the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions come into the hands of the German reader: thus I may 

 mention, as an example, that I did not get hold of the work for 

 1840, containing Dr. Barry's Third Series, until the beginning 

 of the year 1842, notwithstanding I had long before sent di- 

 rectly to London for it through a bookseller. The abstracts 

 which Dr. Barry gave in the Philosophical Magazine, and 

 which first became known in Germany through the medium of 

 Froriep's Neue Notizcn, were so unintelligible, that it was not 

 easy for any one to make out their meaning. Now I have con- 

 tinuously, from the year 1834 up to this time, occupied myself 

 with the development of the Mammifera. In 1838 I had al- 

 ready ascertained the principal points and made them pub- 

 licly known, both at the meeting of German naturalists at 

 Freiburg for that year, and also by publication in Rudolph 

 Wagner's Physiology, which appeared the same year; and all 

 this before I even knew of the existence of Dr. Martin Barry. 

 In April 1842 my memoir had already been delivered in to 

 the Berlin Academy, and as 1 had but shortly before received 

 Dr. Barry's Third Series, I certainly could not have made any 

 material use of it. In fact his works have occasioned me no- 

 thing but unspeakable trouble and delay, inasmuch as I took 

 every pains imaginable to find out by observation the source 

 of his errors. 



In the second place, as regards the subject-matter itself, 

 there is contradiction on the face of it; for Dr. Barry accuses 

 me of having made use of his results, and yet his displeasure 

 has been mainly called forth by the circumstance that I have 

 come to results quite different from his ! The most important 

 points of my observations are, — the discovery of spermatozoids 

 on the ovaries and the ova, the division of the yelk during the 

 passage of the ovum along the Fallopian tube, the develop- 

 ment of cells out of the globular masses of yelk, and the com- 

 position of the blastodermic vesicle by the former, the forma- 

 tion of layers in the blastodermic vesicle, and the whole deve- 

 lopment of the embryo and its membranes, — points which I 

 had either made known before Dr. Barry, or in which I wholly 

 disagree from what he has said in regard to them, or which 

 have not been observed or ascertained by him at all. It would, 

 however, tire the reader and serve no purpose to refute the 



