Y26 ALPHEUS HYATT. 



reptant habits, first arcuate and then coiled ; these being acquired 

 characters which have been " introduced late in the ontogeny and 

 gradually forced back to younger and younger stages in successive 

 generations, or species, or genera." He also accounts for the peculiar 

 horizontal growth of the oyster, pecten, etc., by their fixed mode of life. 



These observations, modes of investigations, and laws or principles so 

 carefully thought out, are the work of a master in biology. They 

 already have been most fruitful in their results, and have been found to 

 apply in other grouj^s of organized beings. Hyatt was thus the founder 

 of a new school in paleontology, and the brilliant results of the work of 

 a younger generation of paleontologists, viz., Beecher, Jackson, Suchert, 

 Smith, and others, all of whom acknowledge him as their master, afford 

 the best of proof of our claim. Certainly the same principles we think 

 will apply to Crustacea, and also to insects, as Hvatt has claimed, and 

 they were applied to vertebrates by Cope and his successors in vertebrate 

 paleontology. For all this work Hyatt's name will forever be associated 

 with the names of Agassiz, Barrande, Neumayr, Waagen, Mojsisovics, 

 and others who have worked along these lines. 



Hyatt's systematic work on the Cephalopods was very extensive. It 

 will be remembered that there are estimated to be about twenty-five 

 hundred species of Nautiloids and five thousand species of Ammouoids. 

 The results of his labors may be seen in the portion he contributed 

 to the translation by Dr. Eastman of the condensed American edition 

 of Zittel's Paleontology. 



In systematic work on the Ammonites Hyatt followed hard after 

 Suess, who in 18G5 inauguiatedthe subdivision of the group into genera. 

 As stated by Zittel : * "A similar reform was advocated by Alpheus 

 Hyatt in his memoir on the Liassic Ammonites (1869). The previous 

 nomenclature of families was discarded by Hyatt, and numerous new 

 genera [were erected, whose limits were much more narrowly defined 

 than had been customary. As one might have expected, the new 

 tendency met at first with strong opposition, but it was supported and 

 followed by Laube, Zittel, Mojsisovics, "Waagen, and Neumayr." 



Dr. Hyatt was not a voluminous writer, but his works are solid, 

 original, independent contributions to science, and will stand, if we 

 mistake not, the test of time. 



He was elected a member of the National Academy of Science in 

 1875, and since 1897 has been a corresponding member of the Geological 



* Zittel's History of Geology and Palaeontology. Translated by M. M. 

 Ogilvie-Gordon. 1891. p. 403. 



