78 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



FANNY E. LANGDON. 



While this paper was passing through the press Miss Langdon 

 died (Oct. 21, 1899) after a brief iUness following an operation for 

 appendicitis. 



She was born at Plymouth, N. H., in 1865, and received her 

 early education in the public schools of the village and in the State 

 Normal School of New Hampshire. She then taught for several years 

 in the primary schools of the state, and in 1891 entered the University 

 of Michigan where she began at once to specialize in botany and zool- 

 ogy. She received the bachelors' degree in 1895 ^^d masters' degree 

 in 1896. In the summer of 1897 she was a student at the Wood's Hole 

 laboratory. She was for two years (1895-7) assistant, and for one year 

 (1897-8) instructor in the botanical department of the University of 

 Michigan. In the fall of 1898 she became instructor in zoology in the 

 same university and held the position at the time of her death. 



In 1895, while an undergraduate, she published in the Journal of 

 Morphology a paper on "The Sense Organs of Lumbricus agricola 

 Hoffm." At the time of her death she had nearly completed an im- 

 portant botanical paper '' On the Development of the Flowers of the 

 Asclepiadaceae." She had expected to finish this paper during the 

 present academic year and afterward to give her whole attention to 

 zoology. From the many notes, drawings and specimens that she has 

 left it is hoped that it may be still possible to prepare the paper for 

 the press. 



Miss Langdon was never robust, and her scientific career was a 

 heroic and inspiring struggle against ill health. She began the work 

 of the present year with health apparently quite restored and, until 

 the end came, her friends were hopeful thatsshe had before her a long 

 career of scientific usefulness. 



That she stood high as an investigator is known to many readers 

 of this journal, who have recognized the painstaking conscientiousness 

 and accuracy of her observations, and the alertness and acumen of her 

 discussions. She was an inspiring laboratory teacher and a clear and 

 forcible lecturer. Those personal characteristics that endeared her to 

 her friends and have moulded her scientific work were, besides a 

 marked ability, conscientiousness and fealty. All her work was her 

 best work. It was well done, not in her interest solely, but for its own 

 sake. JACOB reighard. 



