LOUIS AGASSIZ 63 



fish, were then known. He was asked to 

 perform the feat at a meeting of the 

 British Association, without being told 

 that a fossil had been found. As he fin- 

 ished his drawing of what the fish must 

 have been, some one drew back a curtain 

 which had concealed the specimen ; and 

 a round of applause broke the decorum 

 of the meeting. 



The generalisations which Agassiz 

 drew from his study of fishes made him, 

 in spite of himself, one of the greatest 

 contributors to the coming theory of 

 evolution by descent, "the "bete noire of 

 his later days." One of the greatest 

 gains of all modern science, the law that 

 the development of the individual animal 

 shows in brief the development of the 

 race, depends more upon Agassiz than 

 upon any other one worker. This law he 

 followed in detail, and proved beyond 

 question for the class of fishes 5 and this 

 he recognised as the greatest result of his 

 research. Long afterward he said: "I 



