Elias Mecznikow. 



liii 



Herr Mecznikow," but Metehnikoff briefly stated tbat this was erroneous 

 and that he alone had done the work, in the absence of Prof. Leuckart 

 and without his aid or suggestion. Naturally this terminated their friendly 

 relations. In the same year he published some notes on those little- 

 known microscopic animals, Icthydium, Chaetonotus, Echinoderes, and 

 Desmoscolex. This also was translated for the ' Quarterly Journal ' in 

 1866, and thus I became familiar with his name and the interesting 

 character of his work, though I did not make his personal acquaintance 

 until 22 years latter, when (in 1888) Pasteur introduced me to him in his 

 laboratory in the Eue Vaugirard. 



These papers were rapidly followed in 1866 by others showing his first-rate 

 powers of accurate observation and originality, viz. on a European land 

 Planarian ; on the development of Myzostomum, the ecto-parasite of the 

 feather-star, which he showed to be a modified Chaetopod ; on insect 

 embryology (Hemiptera and Diptera) ; on the remarkable new rotifer, Apsilus 

 lentiformis ; and on the viviparous reproduction of the larvse of the fly 

 Cecidomyia. Then he sojourned for a time (1867) at Naples (before the days 

 of Dohrn's Zoological Station) and wrote on the embryology of the cuttle-fish 

 Sepiola, on the strange marine forms Chaetosoma and Ehabdogaster, and in 

 1869 on Tornaria (which he showed to be the larva of Balanoglossus) and on 

 the embryology of Echinoderms and of jelly-fish. 



In 1870 he was appointed Professor Ordinarius of Zoology in the University 

 of Odessa, and soon afterwards published papers on the embryology of 

 Chelifer and of Myriapods. In the previous year he published an interesting 

 paper on the little Trematode parasite of fishes' gills — Gyrodactylus — and 

 joined with that fine naturalist, Claparede, whom he met at Naples, in a 

 paper on the embrj^ology of Chaetopods. 



After his appointment at Odessa his work was interrupted by the illness 

 and death from tuberculosis of his first wife, whom he had married in 1868. 

 In spite of every care and a long sojourn in Madeira, whither he accompanied 

 her, she died there in 1873. 



In 1874 we find a paper by him " On the Eyelids of Mongolians and 

 Caucasians," of considerable value to anthropologists, and in 1877 one of 

 a bionomic character on " The Struggle for Existence between Two Species 

 of Cockroaches — Periplaneta orientalis and Blatta gcrmanica." 



In 1875 he married his second wife, Olga Belocoyitoff, who was only 

 17 years of age. She had just completed her studies in the "lycee" of 

 Odessa, and attended after her marriage her husband's zoological teaching in 

 the university. She survives him, and was, for 40 years, his constant 

 companion and ceaselessly devoted friend and helpmeet. She often aided him 

 in laboratory work and by her knowledge of English and other languages, 

 though her special gifts, which she has cultivated to a high degree of excellence, 

 are in painting and sculpture. From time to time she has published her own 

 contributions to subjects which were occupying her husband's attention. The 

 earliest of these is one " On the Morphology of the Pelvis and Shoulder- 



