BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HENRY MILNE-EDWARDB. 717 



certain products. All these objects remaiued little understood, aiul the 

 functions of their organs were still more obscure. Thus a new order 

 revealed itself when naturalistvS — Milne-Edwards, one of the first — 

 began to study marine organisms no longer in collections but in their 

 own habitat in the bosom of the sea, even in the active conditions of 

 their existence. This new class of study marked one of the character- 

 istic features of the work of ]\Iilne-Edwards, and of those following him 

 of the French school — 1 mean to say this intimate and consistent union 

 of physiology with anatomy. Science has been re created, owing to the 

 gradual ascendancy of the points of view revealed by this union over 

 questions of simple classification that had hitherto been dominant under 

 the influence of Liun?eus, de Jussieu, and Cuvier, 



In 1827 Milne-Edwards published conjointly with Audouin his ''Ana- 

 tomical and Physiological Investigations of the Circulation of Crusta- 

 ceans," investigations that made a sensation and in 1828 gained the 

 Academy's prize for experimental physiology. Studies on the respira- 

 tion of crustaceans and on the branchial modifications for the purpose 

 of adapting crustaceans to life on the earth, investigations of the nerv- 

 ous and muscular systems of crustaceans, their geographical distribu- 

 ion being regulated, according to this author, by the double considera- 

 tion of the existence of several distinct centers of creation and by the 

 unequal fitness of species for swimming, combined with purely physical 

 conditions of teinx)erature. The nearer we approach the equator the 

 more varied and more highly organized species become. 



The investigations of the organization and classification of deca^joda 

 crustaceans that Milne- Edwards had been making from the year 1831 

 served as a prelude to a more extensive work — his Natural History of 

 Crustaceans — of which I will presently speak. In 1851 he again took 

 up the interesting morphology of these same decapodal crustaceans. 



The study of annelids naturally accompanies that of crustaceans; 

 the greater part have the same habits and often even serve them for 

 ]>rey. From 1821) Milne- Edwards and Audouin were also engaged in 

 describing the species that inhabit the coast of France and in reform- 

 ing their classification. In 1837 Milne P^dwards was engaged in exam- 

 ining the structure and functions of the circulatory system of anne- 

 lids. In 1845 he returned to the study of myrianids and he described 

 the mode of multiplication of these singular organisms, showing how 

 their penultinate ring is developed and divided into several distinct 

 rings, constituting a new animal which for a certain time remains 

 united to its parent before separating from it to lead an independent 

 existence. Often, even before this separation takes place, it becomes 

 in its own turn the point of departure of a similar section and for the 

 production of a third organism like itself and its progenitor, and so on; 

 so that in this way as many as six young ones attached in a series may 

 be seen at the posterior extremity of the parent individual or stock 

 which serves as common ancestor. 



