lxil CHARLES OTIS WHITMAN 
Dicyemids 
In 1882 Whitman published his paper on the Dicyemids. He 
confirmed much of the earlier work of van Beneden, but made out 
a diferent relation between the nematogene and the rhombo- 
gene individuals. He discovered certain facts that led him to 
conclude that the germagene of van Beneden arose from fertilized 
eges while all other individuals arose parthenogenetically. Whit- 
man’s conclusion in regard to the relationships of the Dicyemids 
is the same as that to which Hartman has come in his recent mono- 
graph. 
Pigeons 
Those who are familiar with Whitman’s work regard his 
studies and experiments on pigeons as his greatest achievement. 
He died at the very moment when he believed that he had reached 
a point where he was prepared to publish the results of this 
extensive and exhaustive investigation. Only on a few occasions 
(see list of publication 1904-1907) has he stated in briefest out- 
line a few of the principal conclusions he had reached. In a paper 
read atthe Universal Exposition in St. Louis in 1904; inhisaddress 
before the International Congress of Zoologists in Boston, 1907; 
and in the Bulletin of the Wisconsin Natural History Society, 
1907, Whitman has expressed himself clearly and forcibly on 
certain fundamental questions of evolution. His address of 
1907 has not been printed but the substance of that address is 
found in his other writings. 
The dominant feature of Professor Whitman’s long and still 
unpublished work on inheritance and evolution lies in its inten- 
sive and extensive attack upon the nature of a specific character. 
In the 90’s he wrote: ‘‘It is to a comparative and experimental 
analysis of specific characters that we must look for knowledge 
of the phenomena of heredity and variation.” And again, in 
1904, in summarizing the results of many years of study of one 
such character he wrote as follows: 
‘“‘Tn tracing the origin and genesis of a single character we meet 
the leading questions in the evolution of species. First and fore- 
most the question as to the nature of the initial stages. Did the 
