feb. 1899] G. H. THEODOR EIJ/ER 165 



lie pointed out the evidence that changes in markings occur in a definite order, 

 and are excited by change of conditions. He was strongly convinced that 

 variation occurs, not in all directions, but in a limited number of definite 

 directions, in other words that the direction of variation is largely pre-ordained 

 by the constitution of the organism. In 1888 he published a summary of his 

 facts and conclusions under the title " Entstehung der Arten, auf Grund vom 

 Vererben envorbener Eigenschaften, nach den Gesetzen organischen Wachsens." 

 He followed this up by works on the characters of butterflies, in which he 

 elaborated his method of investigation in great detail. The first of these, in 

 two parts (1889 and 1895), referred to the species of the genus Papilio, and 

 allied forms. His latest work, " Orthogenesis der Schmetterlinge," was published 

 in 1897, and contains a mass of important and interesting detail. 



Eimer's powers of lucid exposition were not perhaps of the highest order, 

 and his methods of controversy were often too personal and passionate. But 

 on the other hand his researches are very original, penetrating, and illuminating, 

 and his bitterness, however much to be regretted, was not unnatural. It is 

 unlikely that the laws he was fond of formulating will prove to be of general 

 application, but his investigations of diagnostic characters, as for example in the 

 case of leaf-like butterflies, bring to light important phenomena whose signifi- 

 cance had not previously been perceived, and he has left behind him a body of 

 work which will be of permanent value in the pursuit of one great object of 

 biological research, namely, the discovery of the particular causes of the 

 characters of organisms. J. T. C. 



The deaths are also announced of Mr. John Barrow, F.B.S., who died in 

 Dec. 1898 at the age of 91 — he took a leading part in promoting the search for 

 Sir John Franklin; on May 13, 1898, at Stockholm, Dr. Sven Borgstrom, 

 bryologist, aged 72 ; Dr. Thomas Sanderson Bulmer, by suicide, at Sierra 

 Blanca, Texas, on Oct. 5 — a student of American archaeology and ethnology ; 

 on Aug. 14, 1898, at Taftville, Conn., Prof. John Comfort Fillmore, ethno- 

 logist, of Pomona College, California ; Camille Flagey, lichenologist, in 

 Algiers, aged G2 ; Joseph Gibelli, Professor of Botany at Turin University ; 

 the entomologist, Louis A. Glaser of New Brighton, at Mannheim, Germany ; 

 on Dec. 21, Alfredo Antunes Kanthack, Professor of Pathology in Cambridge 

 University, aged 35 ; Mr. Christopher Young Michie, a leading Scottish 

 authority on forestry, author of The Larch, The Practice of Forestry, etc. ; on 

 Oct. 23, Dr. Hermann Muller, privat-docent for bacteriology at Vienna, 

 aged 32 ; Jacques Passe, an assistant in the laboratory of physiological 

 psychology at the Sorbonne, well known for his researches on the sense of 

 smell ; Dr. August Pollmann, teacher of agriculture at the Agricultural 

 Academy, Bonn, on May 16, 1898, aged 85; on Aug. 6, at Irrenhaus, Emerich 

 Vellay, formerly assistant at the Hungarian entomological station ; G. 

 Venturi, the Austrian bryologist, on June 5, 1898, bequeathing his moss 

 herbarium and library to the city of Trent; on Jan. 15, Mr. Andrew 

 Wilson, L.D.S., late Vice-President of the Royal Physical Society, Edinburgh 

 — an expert odontologist and an enthusiastic student of Mammalian dentition 

 and Lepidoptera. We regret also to have to announce that Dr. Henry Alleyne 

 Nicholson, Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen, died 

 after a short illness, on January 19, at the age of fifty-five. An obituary 

 notice will be given next month. 



