via LIFE AND WORKS OF COPE. 



made twenty-four communications upon the Reptilia and 

 established himself at the age of twenty-one as one of the 

 leading herpetologists of the country. 



Even in the papers he presented at this early age he 

 shows keen observation and powers of systematic diagnosis, 

 a wide range of self-acquired knowledge, and familiarity 

 with the personal and scientific characteristics of his dis- 

 tinguished seniors, Agassiz and Leidy. This period in- 

 cluded a year's study (1858-59) of anatomy and clinical 

 instruction at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1863 

 he travelled abroad for several months, visiting especially 

 the museums of Leyden, Vienna, and Berlin, and greatly 

 extending his horizon as a comparative anatomist, for upon 

 his return he at once showed the impulse of a more philo- 

 sophical spirit, complete familiarity with the history of 

 opinion, and marked power of generalization. Thus his 

 papers, which begin to crowd the pages of the Proceedings 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences, chiefly in recent herpe- 

 tology and ichthyology, display a new breadth and range 

 as seen in his division of the Anura into the Arcifera and 

 Raniformes (Firmisternia) and his demonstration of the 

 main evolution principles in these groups. 



In 1864 Haverford College called him to a professor- 

 ship of natural science. This position, however, he held 

 for only three years. Twenty-two years later he again re- 

 sumed teaching as a Professor of Geology and Paleontology 

 in the University of Pennsylvania, all the interval having 

 been devoted to exploration and research. In 1865 he first 

 began to extend his studies among the Mammalia, especially 

 the Cetacea, recent and extinct, of the Coastal Tertiary. 

 Early in 1866 a wider paleontological field opened in the 

 vertebrata of the Cretaceous marls of New Jersey, whence he 

 procured the remains of Dinosaurs, describing especially 

 the carnivorous Lselaps. In the same year appeared the 

 continuation of his tropical American and Sonoran herpe- 



