878 CHARLES OTIS WHITMAN. 



Mr. Edward Phelps Allis, Jr., on the lake at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

 While here he launched the Journal of Morphology, characterized by 

 the scholastic and artistic excellence of its contributions. In 1888 

 Professor Whitman accepted the invitation of the Trustees of the 

 newly organized Marine Biological Laboratory to become its director. 

 This laboratory he developed with extraordinary success during 21 

 years. It was during the early years of the laboratorj' that the 

 technical scientific society now called the American Society of Zoolo- 

 gists was founded, largely through his initiative. In 1889 Whitman 

 was called to Clark University as professor of zoology. He removed 

 in 1892 to the new University of Chicago where he and his associates 

 developed a large school of zoological research. For a period of 

 fifteen years Whitman bred pigeons to get at an understanding of the 

 evolution of their color markings. He paid particular attention to 

 the phylogeny of pigeons, instinct and animal behavior, infertility 

 and the nature of sex. Caring for his pigeons he contracted a heavy 

 cold and died suddenly of pneumonia on March sixth, 1910, at the 

 age of 67. His principal biographer records 67 titles of publications of 

 which 7 are his annual reports. The others are brief notices of techni- 

 cal methods, a few are polemical, 9 are of a semi-popular sort relating 

 to the work and aims of the biological laboratory. A number are 

 brief essays chiefly upon philosophical-biological matters, such as 

 "The seat of formative and regenerative energy," 1887; "The natu- 

 ralist's occupation," 1891; "The inadequacy of the cell theory of 

 development," 1893; "General physiology and its relation to mor- 

 phology," 1893; " Evolution and epigenesis," 1895; "Bonnet's theory 

 of evolution; a system of negations," also "The palingenesia and the 

 germ doctrine of Bonnet," 1895; "Animal behavior," 1899; "Myths 

 in animal psychology," 1899. The more strictly investigational 

 papers fall into three periods; 1. The invertebrate period devoted 

 chiefly to the leech and to Dicyemids. 2. The period of vertebrate 

 embryology, including especially work on pelagic fish eggs, on amphi- 

 bian eggs and the ganoid fish, Amia. 3. The period of genetics, 

 foreshadowed in his note "Artificial production of variation in types," 

 1892, and continued with the pigeons to the end, 1910, — in all 18 

 years. While the quantity of his published work is not great it is 

 mostly characterized by fine literary style, scientific accuracy and 

 philosophic insight. 



Chas. B. Davenport. 



