HAECKEL AND THE NEW ZOOLOGY 



ing to-day whose mind contains a larger store of tech- 

 nical scientific facts than his, nor a man who has en- 

 riched zoology with a larger number of new data, the 

 result of direct personal observation in field or labora- 

 tory. 



How large Haeckel's contribution in this last regard 

 has been can be but vaguely appreciated by running 

 over the long list of his important publications, though 

 the list includes more than one hundred titles, unless it 

 is understood that some single titles stand for mono- 

 graphs of gigantic proportions, which have involved 

 years of labor in the production. Thus the text alone 

 of the monograph on the radiolarians, a form of micro- 

 scopic sea-animalcule (to say nothing of the volume of 

 plates), is a work of three gigantic volumes, weighing, 

 as Professor Haeckel laughingly remarks, some thirty 

 pounds, and representing twelve years of hard labor. 

 This particular monograph, by-the-bye, is written in 

 English (of which, as of several other languages, Pro- 

 fessor Haeckel is perfect master), and has a history 

 of more than ordinary interest. It appears that the 

 radiolarians were discovered about a half -century ago by 

 Johannes Muller, who made an especial study of them, 

 which was uncompleted at the time of his death in 

 1858. His monograph, describing the fifty species then 

 known, was published posthumously. Haeckel, on 

 whom the mantle of the great teacher was to fall, and 

 who had been Mtiller's last pupil, took up the work his 

 revered master had left unfinished as his own first 

 great original Arbeit. He went to Messina and was de- 

 lighted to find the sea there replete with radiolarians, 

 of which he was able to discover one or two new species 



