8 Bashford Dean Memorial Volume 



course his handwriting approached the minute, rapidly cursive style that later on became 

 so well known to his friends and students. 



EARLY SCIENTIFIC WORK 

 Beginning 1887 



During his summer vacations in the region of the old family home in Tarrytown, 

 he spent much time fishing with his father, thus acquiring some of the first-hand knowledge 

 of fresh water fishes and other forms of life which is revealed in his earliest papers. An 

 excellent wash drawing of a catfish, noted as having been taken at Philipse Manor Mill 

 Pond, near Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, N. Y., dates from his seventeenth year. At the 

 City College he studied biology under Professor William Stratford, who had a profound 

 influence upon his subsequent career. He graduated with high honors in the class of 

 1886 and was then appointed to the teaching staff of the College in the Department of 

 Natural History, where he served until 1891. During this period he doubtless acquired 

 the broad foundations of his life work. 



Early in this period (1885, 1886) Eugene Blackford, another friend ot his father's, 

 who was in charge of an investigation and survey of the oyster territories of the state of 

 New York, began to interest young Dean in this subject, which was to engage part of 

 his time for many years to come. His first scientific paper, entitled ''The Food of the 

 Oyster; its Conditions and Variations," was pubHshed in connection with Blackford's 

 investigation, in 1887, the year after his graduation from college when he was about 

 twenty years old. It is illustrated with three excellent plates drawn by himself. In the 

 same year (1887) he made his first trip to Europe, fiUing his notebook with quick sketches 

 of the interesting buildings and inhabitants of Portugal, Spain, and France, and begin- 

 ning his studies of foreign methods of oyster culture for the United States Commission 

 of Fish and Fisheries. His subsequent reports on this subject embody his observations 

 on the oysters and oyster beds of New York (1887), South Carolina (1892), France 

 (1892), other European countries (1893, 1895) and Japan (1900, 1901). 



His acquaintance with the genial Major Mather, a fish culturist, aided him in the 

 field study of the biology of fresh water fishes. He collaborated with Mather in a report 

 on the plants and animals of the Long Island lakes at Ronkonkoma and Riverhead, pub- 

 lished in 1889. During this formative period he was a keen student and collector of 

 plants, insects, diatoms, fresh water invertebrates, geological specimens, fossil fishes, 

 and armor. The fish-eating plant (Utricularia) was the subject of a careful report (1889). 

 The timber-boring insects were described in a special chapter in a book by Ivin Sickels on 

 wood working (1890). A little later (1890) Dean was appointed the first director of the 

 summer school of biology held at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, in the New York 

 State fish hatchery. His magnetic enthusiasm aroused the support of John D. Jones, 

 who gave a building and lands to this laboratory, which from that time on played an 

 important part in the development of biology in the United States. Meanwhile, 

 through his contact with Dr. John Draper, he studied physiological chemistry and later 



