Januakt 8, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



71 



notes and hoped to bring them out in a sepa- 

 rate publication. 



Giard stayed in Lille until 1887, when he 

 accepted a call to Paris as professor in the 

 Eoole Normale Superieure, and a year later 

 the municipality created for him a professor- 

 ship in the Sorbonne for the Evolution des 

 Etres organises, which he occupied up to the 

 time of his death. 



In 1900 he was elected a member of the 

 Academy of Sciences, and during the last few 

 years several of the most important foreign 

 academies had likewise admitted him to their 

 ranks. 



There was scarcely a contemporary natural- 

 ist who possessed in similar degree Giard's 

 gift of interesting and attracting younger 

 workers. His manner was cordial, happy, 

 inspiring; his students felt that they could 

 rely upon him, and he in turn guided their 

 steps with the keenest interest, gave them his 

 personal support in their career and rejoiced 

 with them in their success. He was not only 

 a master but a true and wise friend. 



His science was eminently altruistic; he 

 worked surrounded by his pupils, happy to see 

 them continue and complete discoveries which 

 he had already outlined. His faculty of ob- 

 servation drew his attention to what might 

 prove interesting in many branches. In 

 almost every group he found material for 

 study, and his works consisted chiefly of short 

 papers, results of personal investigations, full 

 •of original and suggestive ideas. Nearly every 

 aspect of biology was touched upon — systematic 

 zoology, anatomy, embryology, etiology, com- 

 parative pathology, teratology, applied zoology, 

 botany, zoological philosophy. His papers are 

 dispersed among a multitude of periodicals, 

 and it would be a difficult task to collect them 

 had there not been published the usual com- 

 plete bibliography and resume (1896) when 

 he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences.' 



I will mention only a few of Giard's most 

 important results: such, for esample, are his 

 numerous researches on parasitism, during 



' " Expose des titres and travaux scientifiques 

 (1869-96) d' Alfred Giard," Paris, 1896, in quarto, 

 396 pp. 



which he discovered many very curious types, 

 e. g., the orthonectida, also an admirable 

 series of papers in collaboration with Jules 

 Bonnier on the epicarides, the isopodous para- 

 sites of Crustacea. His synthetic genius, com- 

 bined with minute observation and rare erudi- 

 tion, enabled him to seize and combine ideas 

 and facts which would otherwise seem to have 

 no connection, and he introduced into general 

 biology new and important ideas founded on 

 well-proved experiences. Eor instance, the 

 action of water and the phenomena of anhy- 

 drohiosis, the curious modifications produced 

 by parasites on their hosts, e. g., in cases of 

 castration by parasites, and the interesting 

 variations of development of individuals of 

 the same species or closely approaching species 

 which he called appropriately pcecilogony. 



Giard was one of the few naturalists who 

 had the gift of being both original and en- 

 cyclopedic. He possessed in an unusual de- 

 gree a knowledge of infinite details of nature 

 and of general philosophy, as one can judge 

 indeed from the lecture he delivered at St. 

 Louis in 1904.* 



His brilliant intellect and prodigious mem- 

 ory enabled him to retain the quantity of 

 material contained in his wide-spread read- 

 ings, so that he was really a living encyclo- 

 pedia and always up to date, opening imme- 

 diately at the page wanted, to be examined 

 at leisure by all who desired to acquire 



All these qualities remained unobscured to 

 the last day of his life, and his loss is felt as 

 an untimely one to all who came in touch 

 with his many activities. 



It is as though a torch carried before the 

 crowd to light the way had been too soon ex- 

 tinguished. M. Caullert 



University op Pabis 



SGIENTIPW NOTES AND NEWS 

 Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Stan- 

 ford University, has been elected president of 

 the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science for the meeting to be held 



• " Les tendances actuelles de la morphologie et 

 sea rapports avec les autres sciences." 



