16 



THE AMEBIC AN NATURALIST [Vol. LI 



dan of one on the Pacific coast at Pacific Grrove, Califor- 

 nia. It was at Penikese, says Morse, tliat Whitman seri- 

 ously began his life work in science, for shortly after- 

 wards he went to Dr. Dohrn's laboratory at Naples and 

 then to Leipzig where, under the great Leuckart, he 

 learned methods of microtome section-cutting, staining of 

 tissues, and processes of preparation far ahead of those 

 used at Penikese ; in short the modern methods of the em- 

 bryologist and morphologist." He was in Germany for 

 three years, being on leave of absence all this time from 

 the Boston high school. In 1878, at the mature age of 

 thirty-five, he received the degree of doctor of philosophy 

 from the University of Leipzig and in the same year ap- 

 peared his doctor's thesis, ''The Embryology of Clep- 

 sine," in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science. 

 This paper of 100 pages introduced important new prin- 

 ciples, as well as facts, into embryological science and was 

 beautifully illustrated by his own drawings. 



On his return to America Whitman took up again his 

 work at the Boston high school, teaching English ; but at 

 the end of the year he had decided to become a zoologist, 

 applied for and received a fellowship in biology at Johns 

 Hopkins University and resigned from the English high 

 school. But during the summer of 1879 he received an 

 invitation from Professor Morse, who had been teaching 

 zoology at the Imperial University in Japan, to fill his 

 place. Accordingly Whitman set sail for Yokohama,, 

 August 21, 1879, and taught at Tokyo until the summer 

 of 1881. Here he trained four investigators who all be- 

 came professors of zoology in the university: conse- 

 quently he may properly be called the father of zoology in 

 Japan. He and the administration of the university be- 

 came estranged, as he would not adapt himself to what 

 seemed to him a desire for official control of intellectual 

 property ; also he felt that his work was insufficiently sup- 

 ported. As he left he published a somewhat harsh bro- 

 chure entitled ''Zoology in the University of Tokyo.*' 

 Leaving Japan in August, 1881, Whitman worked at the 

 Zoological Station of Naples as a guest of Professor 



