Vol. XXvi] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 45 



August Weismavn, as his name commonly appeared, was 

 born in 1834, at Frank furt-am-Main, and studied Zoology 

 under Ilenle at Gottingen and Leuckart in Giessen. Since 

 1866, he was Professor of Zoolog)' and Director of the Zoo- 

 logical Institute of the University at Freiburg im Brei^^a. 

 P.aden. In later years he bore the titles of Exrellenz and Wirk- 

 lichcr Geheimrat, The Royal 55ociety of Lxxulon elected him 

 a foreign member in 1910, and the Entomological Society of 

 London one of its twelve honorary' fellows in 1898. He was 

 recently reported to have renounced all his English distinc- 

 tions. To zoologists generally and to the worKl at large he is 

 chiefly known for his writings on the theory of Evohition and 

 its correlations. The titles of the luiglish transktions of his 

 works on these subjects are familiar to a wide range of read- 

 ers: Studies in the Theory of Descent (translated by R. Md- 

 dola), 1880-81 : Essays Upon Heredity and Kindred Biological 

 Problems (edited by K. U. Toulton and others). 2 vols., 1881) 

 and i8t)2; The Germ Plasm, a Theory of Heredity. 1893; The 

 '» Theory, 2 vols., 1904: The Selection Theory (in 

 . . «...-i.s Parxi'in and Modem ScieHct)t 1909. All of them 

 contain many references to insects. 



In these writings he emphasized the importance of the separ- 

 ation of the germ plasm fr< <«oaiatic, or body, plasm 

 from the earliest stages of ual do'elopment. and ex 

 l>oscd the lack of definite evidence for the hereditary trans 

 mission to oflfspring of characters acquired during the life of 

 an individual. In his famous controversy with Herbert 

 Spencer, in the Contemporary Revien* for 1803, he appeared 

 as the champion of the ".Ml-Sufficiency of Natural Jselection." 

 Still later, in 1895 and |8</S, he answered, theoretically at least, 

 many objections which ha<l been brought against Nattiral Selec- 

 tion by the formulation of the idea of Germinal Selection. 



To W'eismann arc due such terms and expressions as bio- 

 phors, amphimixis, idants, determinants, ids, continuity of thr 

 germ plasm, etc., which appeared so frequently in discussion^ 

 of r '1 and hcre<lity in the last decade of the nineteenth 

 ceiii i the first of the twentieth, ami during this period 



no one influenced biological thought more than he. 



