6;ib 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 485. 



passes away one of the last representatives of 

 the early pioneers in scientific work in old 

 New York. To the labors of this group of 

 men, among whom were Professors Wood and 

 Torrey, we owe many of our privileges to-day 

 in the scientific world. Dr. Hyatt averaged 

 during the years between 1860 and 1870 twenty 

 lectures a week in sixteen schools and colleges, 

 besides holding the chair of chemistry and 

 toxicology in the Woman's Medical College. 

 He was the author of ' First Lessons in Chem- 

 istry,' published in 1839, and ' The Elements 

 of Chemistry,' published in 1856. At the 

 time of his death he was a volunteer observer 

 of the Weather Bureau. It is well that we 

 honor the memory of these pioneers. It was 

 they who fostered the spirit of learning and 

 the love for science when the humanities alone 

 were thought worthy of the attention of those 

 who sought education. To their labors and 

 their foresight we owe our great scientific 

 societies and associations which exercise so 

 potent an influence on the thought and activ- 

 ities of the educational world of to-day. 



John J. Schoonhoven. 



MANS HERMANN BEHB. 

 I There died in San Francisco, March 6, 1904, 

 Dr. Hans Hermann Behr, in his eighty-sixth 

 year. His work belonged to the preceding 

 generation; for though the brightness of his 

 intellect was undimmed to the last, yet the 

 feebleness of his body prevented his doing 

 scientific work during the last years of his 

 life, when his position as curator of the Ento- 

 mological Department of the California Acad- 

 emy of Sciences gave him leisure. His large 

 and valuable collection of lepidoptera is in 

 the possession of the California Academy of 

 Sciences ,and contains, besides his own tjrpes 

 of California insects, duplicates of the types 

 of Xantus and Boisduval and others. The 

 collection is cosmopolitan and is probably 

 the most complete collection of Oalifornian 

 lepidoptera in existence. He attended the 

 universities of Halle and Wiirtzburg, but took 

 his degree from the University of Berlin. 

 He numbered among his friends some of the 

 leading scientific men of the age, Alexander 

 von Humboldt, Virchow, Schlechtendahl, 



Naumann, Garmar, Ferdinand von Mueller, 

 Dr. liillebrand, Louis Agassiz, Max Miiller 

 and others. 



For many years he was professor of botany 

 at the California College of Pharmacy and he 

 wrote two little books on the ' Flora of San 

 Francisco ' to assist the students. The ' In- 

 troduction ' to the earliest ' Local Flora ' shows 

 that he was abreast if not ahead of his time, 

 and also gives an original outline of the sys- 

 tem of classification showing a complete grasp 

 of the orders of plants that is Very rare. He 

 kept no record or copies of his publications, 

 and it would be a work taking some time to 

 unearth them from the German and American 

 periodicals where they appeared. 



He was a many-sided man, wrote German 

 poems of beauty and genuine feeling, wrote a 

 story of life in the Philippine Islands which 

 was published in the Atlantic Monthly, and a 

 novel of life in California published in a 

 German magazine. He understood every 

 language of Europe. Greek and Latin were 

 about as familiar to him as English and he 

 could quote from the classics indefinitely. 

 He was a purist in the formation of scientific 

 terms, and such words as ' cotype ' and a 

 genitive like ' Salmonorum ' aroused his con- 

 tempt and wrath. During his early manhood 

 he was a deep student of Sanscrit and he 

 learned Hebrew when a boy. He was one of 

 the early members of the now famous Bo- 

 hemian Club of San Francisco. The papers 

 which he wrote for the amusement of the club 

 have been lately collected and published un- 

 der the title of 'The Hoot of the Owl,' to 

 amuse and charm every one with their quaint 

 and original humor. 



Alice Eastwood. 



California Acabemt of Sciences. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



President Carroll D. Wright has decided 

 not to call a spring meeting of the council of 

 the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, in view of the fact that 

 there seems to be no business of sufficient 

 urgency to warrant it. 



Dr. Simon Flexner, director of the Rocke- 

 feller Institute, New York, has been elected 



