62 
Psyche 
[ September 
and Wheeler spent a year arranging zoological material of 
all kinds and identifying specimens for Professor Ward. At 
that time he prepared a check-list of shells, so well done that 
it is still useful to conchologists after the lapse of more than 
fifty years ! At the Ward Establishment he met Carl Akeley, 
later famous taxidermist. Concerning their early associa- 
tion and life-long friendship Wheeler has written interest- 
ingly in his obituary of Akeley, published in 1927. This 
contains also reminiscences of Wheeler’s own early youth. 
He left Ward’s in 1885, returned to Milwaukee and at 
the invitation of the well-known entomologist, Dr. G. W. 
Peckham, who was then principal of the Milwaukee High 
School, accepted a position to teach German and physiology 
there. After he had taught in the high school for two years, 
he was made custodian of the newly established Milwaukee 
Public Museum where he remained until 1890. During this 
period there was established nearby the Allis Lake Labora- 
tory, a biological station, to which Professor C. 0. Whitman 
came as director. From contact with this laboratory and 
especially through the interest of one of its staff, Dr. William 
Patton, Wheeler was induced to undertake a study of insect 
embryology. With the help of Dr. Patton he mastered the 
necessary microscopical technique, procured a microtome 
and set to work, utilizing such time as he could spare from 
his duties at the museum. 
Professor Whitman was then called to Clark University, 
and recognizing young Wheeler’s genius in the problem he 
had undertaken, offered him a fellowship at Clark. This he 
accepted in 1890 and two years later was granted the degree 
of Doctor of Philosophy for this “Contribution to Insect 
Embryology” which had its inception in the happy circum- 
stance of the establishment of the Allis Laboratory. The 
next year Wheeler spent in Europe, first at Wurzburg, then 
at the Naples Zoological Station and finally at Liege before 
returning to America. He then went to the University of 
Chicago, where he remained for five years, first as instructor 
in embryology and after 1898 as assistant professor. During 
this period his interest in insect embryology was waning, and 
he became more interested in other phases of entomology. 
In the autumn of 1899 he accepted a position as Professor 
of Zoology in the University of Texas. There, with the aid 
