The Days of a Man 



'Stein- Being in Vienna, I visited with great pleasure the 



venerable intendant or chief director of the Natural 

 History Museum, Dr. Franz Steindachner, one of the 

 ablest ichthyologists of our times. Born in 1834, in 

 1859 he began work on the fossil fishes of Austria, his 

 memoirs on the subject of Ichthyology numbering 

 440. As assistant to Agassiz in the '6o's, he then 

 visited California and described many of our coast 

 species. He also made collections in Spain and Brazil, 

 and all together published accurate and finely illus- 

 trated studies on the fishes of almost every part of the 

 globe. Steindachner confined his attention to faunal 

 work and exact definition of species. He was little 

 interested in generalizations, and broad combinations 

 he left to less-experienced investigators, on the prin- 

 ciple laid down by Linnaeus: "Tyro novit classes; 

 magister fit species." 1 Within the field as thus limited, 

 no German vertebrate zoologist has approached him. 

 When the Austrian government dismantled the 

 fortifications about Vienna, a broad street, the Burg- 

 ring, took its place. Here were established the 

 Imperial and Royal Art Gallery, Opera House, and 

 Natural History Museum. Steindachner then became 

 director of the last-named, though provided with a 

 wholly inadequate force and very little money for 

 securing material. He had an excellent lithographic 

 artist, Edward Konopicky, and a taxidermist, but all 

 labels he wrote for himself, and he himself paid for 

 most of his specimens. Through me he bought a good 

 deal of material secured in my early expeditions, but 

 before 1910 had reached the limit of possible pur- 

 chases. 



In his devotion to work, he never married. I found 



lu The beginner originates classes; the master makes species." 



C 310 3 



