478 Obituary — Henri Milne Edwards. 



understood by naturalists of the future. Edwards's life forms a 

 trophy of laurels won in the prosecution of these views. 



lu the year 1826 he commenced with J. V. Audouin a series of 

 researches on the anatomy and zoology of animals of the coasts of 

 France, which he visited more particularly to study living forms 

 and to investigate habits ; and before the year had expired he gave 

 the result of these researches in a work entitled Littoral de la France, 

 a great part of which, concerned with annelids, was eulogized 

 by Cuvier. The following year, in collaboration with the same 

 naturalist, he published the remarkable studies in experimental 

 physiology : RecliercJies anatomiques et physiologiqiies stir la circula- 

 tion dans les crustaces — a work which obtained in 1828 the prize for 

 physiology given by the Academy of Sciences. By this inquiry, as 

 declared by Cuvier, he enriched the fauna of France with new and 

 curious species, and zoology generally with interesting observations. 

 The results were submitted to the Academy in July and November, 

 1829, and they form the subject of an elaborate report presented in 

 November, 1830, by Cuvier, Dumeril, and Latreille, in which the 

 first idea of zones of marine life was promulgated. The great 

 principle discovered by these researches was that, the more an 

 animal exhibits in its organs a division of laboui', the higher it is in 

 the scale of organization ; and they obtained for Edwards the credit 

 of being the founder of the morphology of crustaceous animals. 

 Moreover, his work became the standard authority on the group. 

 Although in 1832 Edwards was elected Professor of Natural History 

 at Lycee Henri IV., and at the Central School of Arts and Manufac- 

 tures, he produced several popular works on natural history, among 

 which were the Nouveau Formulaire pratique des Hopitaux and the 

 Elements dliistoire naturelle of A. Comte. The latter work was re- 

 produced to the extent of a hundred thousand copies, and was re- 

 issued in 1851 as a Cours eUmentaire de zoologie} The study of marine 

 animals now absorbed Milne Edwards's attention. Astonished at 

 the profusion and richness of forms yet unknown exhibited by the 

 crustaceans in the galleries of the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle, he 

 resolved to write a complete history of these animals. His work, 

 printed in the years 1834 — 1840, and entitled Eistoire Naturelle des 

 Crustaces (3 vols, and atlas), bears on every page evidence of the 

 author's remarkable powers of observation, as does also his article 

 " Crustacea," contributed in this interval to Todd's Cyclopaedia. A 

 visit to the coasts of Algeria was undertaken in 1836, and the 

 materials then collected were given to the scientific world in a 

 series of memoirs styled Recherclies anatomiques et zoologiques sur les 

 polypes, one marked result being the separation of the polyzoa from 

 the polyps, included together in the group of Eadiata founded by 

 Cuvier. The importance, number, and variety of his works had 

 already surprised zoologists, and on the death of Cuvier, in 1838, 



1 This work was also translated into English: by Dr. E. Knox (London 1856) 

 and had a very large sale in this country. Many other copies ot the work no( 

 btaring Milne Edwards's name, have been published "by English, Scotch, Irish, 

 and American literary contrabandists." — (Knox). 



