Septemiee 13, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



335 



theory of evolution as applied to living- 

 things, which brightening the horizon of 

 science relieved it of all mists, such as the 

 theories of Oken and its many variants, be- 

 fore men of Eyder's age looked toward the 

 dawn for inspiration. 



In America, to use Professor Packard's 

 expression, a neo-Lamarckian phase of the 

 theory of evolution arose. It held to an 

 insistence of mechanical causes in modify- 

 ing the shapes of organisms. Its advocates 

 were Alpheus Hyatt and Edward D. Cope, 

 men whom Darwin did not understand, but 

 Eyder did; and, while he is in no respect a 

 disciple of either of these distinguished 

 men, his career was in a sense determined 

 by them. 



The forces which Eyder so eagerly stud- 

 ied were those which tended, as he believed 

 they did, to modify endlessly the bodies in 

 which they are exercised. The living body 

 is compared by him to a machine in motion, 

 which changes the shape of the machine it- 

 self by virtue of the motions; he believed 

 that such changes are transmitted to off- 

 spring, and in this way organisms tend to 

 endless variation. ISTothing is fixed but the 

 initial necessity to change. 



Dr . Eyder might have done well had he con- 

 fined himself more than he did to the study 

 of species and genera. His papers in this 

 line were excellent. He announced several 

 forms of Thysanura, Myriapods, fresh water 

 crustaceans, and a new fresh water polyj). 

 He revised the account of the sturgeons of 

 our eastern waters, and resusciated Le 

 Sueur's Accipenser brevirostris, an old speci- 

 men of which (probably part of the ma- 

 terial on which the species was named) was 

 found by Eyder in the Museum of the 

 Academy. 



In competent hands the elucidation of 

 species is not, as it has opprobriously been 

 said to be, a dullard's task of taking an in- 

 ventory of nature, but the study of the 

 ultimate forms which those organisms as- 



sume which breed true. The shifting of 

 color-schemes, the exhibition of the effects 

 of retardation or precocity in the develop- 

 ment of the individual, the effects of food 

 and climate on size in whole or in parts, 

 and of other causes by which minute differ- 

 entiations are started and maintained, are 

 of unending interest, and worthy of the 

 best powers of the naturalist. If Eyder 

 had been more closely identified than 

 he was with the careers of the great acad- 

 emicians who had preceded him he would 

 in no whit have detracted from the value of 

 his philosophical labors. One cannot but 

 regret, if for no other reason than for his 

 health's sake, that he discontinued those 

 fruitful excursions to our woods, ponds and 

 rivers by which he contributed so notably 

 to our micro-fauna. 



With nameless I'egret, we note in what 

 degree his exceptional powers were wasted. 

 We see him in training as an oyster cultur- 

 ist, or busy with details of affairs on the 

 Fish Commission. We see him giving his 

 substance of energy to undergraduate in- 

 struction. Why do we insist that pen- 

 knives are appropriate tools to fell oaks? 

 that pedagogy is a suitable career for a 

 man who has rare gifts for investigation ? 

 We may never see nor the world see 

 the like of Eyder again. Why did we not 

 get all that was possible from him while 

 he was here, and leave the tasks of teach- 

 ing undergraduates to those equally earnest 

 with himself, to teachers as capable as him- 

 self, but who did not possess a tithe of his 

 ability as an inquirer after truth ? Teach- 

 ing, it is true, gave him his maintenance, 

 one which he preferred to any other. Alas! 

 that there is no larger Jessup Fund for ma- 

 tured students as well as tyros! No com- 

 plaint is here made that as compared with 

 other students Eyder had not received due 

 consideration. Nevertheless, bureau em- 

 ployment and teaching are not the best 

 uses to which we can put exceptionally en- 



