234 
oids. Instead of this single order (or sub- 
class) of the old systematists, he named 
four superorders of the Teleostomi or true 
fishes,’ and recognized seven orders, includ- 
ing the old ganoids after eliminating the 
Lepidosteids and Amiids, which were refer- 
red to the Actinopterygians. Only two of 
the seven orders are represented by ex- 
isting forms—one( Cladistia ) by the bichirs 
of Africa and the other (Chondrostei) by 
the sturgeons. 
His work on the extinct fishes was in- 
comparably better than any that had been 
done before in the United States. He far 
surpassed all his predecessors, not only by 
his knowledge of morphological details 
manifest in the extinct as well as living 
forms, but by his keen philosophical instinct 
and taxonomic tact. But this philosophical 
instinct was sometimes at fault, and oc- 
easionally he indulged in the wildest specu- 
lations, for which he has, not unjustly, been 
taken to task. But even his blunders were 
the result of the facility of his mind in 
seizing and adapting the latest utterances 
of science. One notorious case may be 
given. The great Russian embryologist 
Kowalevsky published a memoir sustaining 
the thesis that the Tunicates were mem- 
bers of the vertebrate phylum and that the 
larval stage of most of the species had the 
homological equivalent of the backbone 
of the true vertebrates. Cope foresaw the 
morphological consequences of this view 
and sought the vertebrates nearest the 
Tunicates. He settled upon some strange 
forms of the Silurian and Devonian times 
known as Pteraspids and Cephalaspids. 
They were the earliest known of vertebrates 
and therefore likely to be the most primi- 
tive in structure. Most of them had a shell- 
like encasement, composed of bone-like 
plates. He happened to find illustrations 
of the living Chelyosoma, a true Tunicate 
having a system of plate-like indurations of 
the integument, somewhat similar in ap- 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Von. VI. No. 137. 
pearance to those of some of the ancient 
fishes. It was assumed that this mere super- 
ficial similarity indicated genetic relation- 
ship. To those acquainted with the struc- 
ture of Chelyosoma this approximation seemed 
strange indeed; its anatomy was known 
and the form is simply a well marked re- 
lation of the typical ascidiids, but highly 
specialized by the development of integu- 
mentary plate-like horny indurations. His- 
tologically and otherwise they were very 
different from the plates of the extinct 
armored vertebrates. Cope’s guess was 
simply the result of the tendency to jump 
at conclusions which he was constantly 
obliged to curb, and unfortunately he rushed 
into print before he had time to think. He 
soon reconsidered the case with calmer 
mind, and abandoned his hypothesis. Few 
men were ever more willing to reconsider 
evidence and retrace false steps than he. 
In spite of errors of detail and somewhat 
hasty generalization the ichthyological 
labors of Cope were unusually valuable 
contributions to science, and the progress 
of ichthyology has been much accelerated, 
not only by these labors, but by the in- 
vestigations they challenged. 
Wo 
Cope’s attention was early drawn to the 
mammals. His first published article 
(1863) was a description of a supposed 
new Shrew found in New Hampshire, and 
in 1865 he described various cetaceans. 
In 1868 he began the collection and inves- 
tigation of the fossil mammals of the west- 
ern territory, and thenceforward devoted 
the larger share of his attention to the de- 
scription and restoration of the numerous 
new species which he from time to time 
brought to light. The previous investiga- 
tors of the extinct mammals of America 
had almost exclusively confined themselves 
to descriptions and illustrations of the cra- 
nia and dentition, but a new era was intro- 
