Europe, and Cuvier granted to the young Agassiz with genuine disinterestedness and liberality the complete use of its rich material. With untiring diligence and rare perseverance, Agassiz here continued his researches on fossil fishes, and anew worked thoroughly through the rich paleontological collection of Conte Gazzola, which contained the originals of Volta's celebrated treatise "L' Ittiologia Veronese."

In 1833 Agassiz again visited the great museums of Germany and Switzerland, and had already distinguished 500 species of fossil fishes, when, in August, 1834, he sailed for England, in order to study there the exceptionally rich public and private collections, in which he found 300 new species. In the year 1835 and 1840, he extended his journeys into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, visiting 'London again and again, in order there to test the notes collected for many years for the completion of his work, and to make himself acquainted with the newest discoveries in the department of paleontology.

In 1844 Agassiz concluded the publication of his gigantic work on the Fossil Fishes, which appeared at Neuchâtel in five quarto volumes, with 311 folio plates. Eighty of the greatest museums of Europe had furnished the material for it, and the number of described species amounted to 1,700 in about 20,000 examples. The "Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles" is undoubtedly Agassiz's most important work, and forms, with Cuvier's and Valenciennes' "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons" and Johann Müller's treatises, the foundation of our present knowledge of fishes, while it does not confine itself to the region of ichthyolites, but extends over the entire wide field of the anatomy and classification of fishes, essentially modifying the latter. Agassiz considered, and with justice, that the separation of the ganoids from the other fishes into the rank of a special order, as the greatest step towards progress for which science was indebted to him; and, on the basis of the comparison of the fossil fishes of all formations with living forms, he enunciated several generally valid laws, which have had an important bearing on the development theory of the whole organic world.

As a special fruit of Agassiz's stay in England appeared in 1844 and 1845, a monograph on the Fossil Fishes of the Devonian System and a smaller treatise on the Fishes of the London Clay.

As early as 1832 was Agassiz called to be professor at Neuchâtel, and in a short time raised the little town to be a chief seat of science in Switzerland. He created a Natural History Museum, and was the chief founder of the Scientific Society, which issued the first volume of its Memoirs in 1835. From all parts of Switzerland came young and talented pupils and friends of nature thither, and gathered round Agassiz, who understood how to inspire them with his great ideas. They followed him in his frequent zoological and geological excursions in the Jura and the Alps, and assisted him in procuring scientific material and helping him in the time-consuming preliminaries of those numerous works which date mainly from the years 1835 to 1845. Along with his friends Desor and Valentin, Agassiz published the great monograph on living and fossil Echinoderms.

The rich collection of fossil conchifera of Switzerland, which a young and able geologist of the name of Gressly

had brought back from his travels, led Agassiz to work out the fossil conchifera of the Jura and the chalk, the result being published under the title of " Études Critiques sur les Mollusques fossiles du Jura et de la Craie,” in four parts with 100 plates. This was followed by several similar supplementary publications on fossil conchifera, of which the "Iconographie des Coquilles tertiares, reputées identiques avec les espèces vivantes ou dans différens Terrains de l'Époque tertiaire,” and “Mémoire sur les Moules de Mollusques vivans et fossiles," are the most important.

In spite of these numerous and comprehensive works, Agassiz found time to devote to the study of living fishes. Thus may be mentioned his treatise on the cyprinoids (1834); the great work brought out in conjunction with Carl Vogt between 1839 and 1845, on the freshwater fishes of Central Europe; in 1842 he brought out his most important "Nomenclator Zoologicus," the result of many years' gatherings, and which contained an alphabetical arrangement of the specific names of the entire animal kingdom, their etymology, information as to the authors who had proposed these names, as well as the year of their appearance. The "Nomenclator" found a magnificent conclusion in the "Bibliographie générale d' Histoire Naturelle," printed at the cost of the Ray Society, unfortunately not without some ugly mutilations on the part of the editor.

While Agassiz no doubt exercised a considerable influence on geology by means of his palæontological researches, still it is as a glacealist that his name will always be prominently associated with that science Venetz', Schimper's, and especially Charpentier's observations and theories on the greater extension of glaciers, and their relations to erratic blocks attracted the attention of Agassiz in 1836 to the glacial phenomena of Switzerland. Charpentier's theories on the former extension of glaciers and other points especially interested Agassiz, who gave himself with his peculiar energy and fertility of idea to the study of glaciers. With Gyot, Desor, Studer, and other young friends, did Agassiz during several years visit most of the glaciers of Switzerland, and examined them in their entire extent, from their origin to their lowest margins. In 1841 was the ascent of the Jungfrau undertaken. In the middle of the Aar glacier, at a height of 8,000 feet above the sea, twelve miles from any human habitation, protected by a huge block, was a station erected, which latterly obtained a European celebrity, under the name of "Hôtel des Neuchâtelois." Here for fully eight years

were researches carried out on the origin of glaciers, the forward and backward oscillations, the structure and ! thickness of the ice, as well as its formation, the origin of moraines, &c. In 1840 appeared Agassiz's first great work, "Études sur les Glaciers," in which he thoroughly discussed the chief phenomena of glaciers, and developed his views on their earlier extension. In a second! work, "Système glacial," he gave a satisfactory account of the observations made in the years 1841-45, especially on the progress of glaciers in various years and under the influence of conditions of temperature. The adoption of a special glacial period was the final result of Agassiz's research among the glaciers of Switzerland, as well as those of Scotland and Wales. An immense ice-bed, the

result of a depression of temperature toward the end of the tertiary covered North and Central Europe, Asia, and North America, and a similar phenomenon was also found to have occurred in South America, from the South Pole to Monte Video and Chile, as Agassiz ascertained during the Hassler Expedition of 1872. The immense importance of this theory, both in geology and biology, was soon recognised, and its discussion has engaged the earnest attention of the ablest men in all departments of science. In the autumn of 1846 Agassiz went to America, partly on a commission from the Prussian Government and partly to fulfil an engagement to give a series of lectures on Comparative Embryology at the Sewell Institute of Boston. This course of lectures led to important results; it aroused an enthusiasm for the study of nature in the widest circles, and Agassiz understood how to make the scientific development of North America in this direction a matter of honour for the whole nation. The offer of the use of the steamers of the Coast Survey led to a scientific cruise in the summer of 1847 along the coast of Massachusetts, followed a few years later by a second larger cruise to the coral reefs of Florida.

After Agassiz had been released from his scientific mission by the Prussian Government, he accepted with pleasure the Chair of Zoology and Geology in the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard College, Cambridge, created specially for Agassiz by the founder of the school, Mr. Abbot Lawrence. Agassiz thus gave up all thought of returning to Europe; he placed his activity, his science, and his talents, at the disposal of the nation that showed itself so anxious to keep him, and where he would enjoy a social power and a liberty which were hardly possible to the savans of the Old World.

As in Neuchâtel, so in Cambridge, Agassiz in a very short time attracted around him a circle of young men, enterprising lovers of natural science. With these, in June, 1848, he undertook a journey to the then little-known region of Lake Superior. In 1850 appeared his wellknown work, “Lake Superior: its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals," in which Agassiz discussed in detail the erratic phenomena of the lake, its future form and extent, the character of its ichthyological and reptilian fauna, while Cabot, Harris, Gould, and J. Leconte worked out the rest of the collections. In succeeding years he made similar expeditions with his pupils into the interior of the United States, and with the collections brought back laid the foundation of a natural history museum, which, until then, had no existence at Harvard University.

In 1852 Agassiz went to Charleston as Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, but returned to Cambridge after two years, the warmer climate of the south not agreeing with him. Soon after he visited all the great towns of North America, lecturing in all departments of zoology and geology. Everywhere he was received with enthusiasm, for his expositions were remarkably clear and full of suggestive thought, his language noble and fluent, his knowledge of human science of the widest, his manner so charming and his conversation so full of the highest instruction, that every one felt it a privilege to be near him. From that time Agassiz became the declared pet of the Americans; he was the most popular man in the whole broad land, and in intel

lectual matters became its greatest benefactor, exercising his influence in improving education and increasing educational establishments.

In 1855 Agassiz began to prepare for the publication of a magnificent work, "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States," he having already published several papers on the subject in American journals. In a short time the necessary means were obtained by subscription, and in 1857 the first volume appeared, dedicated to Döllinger and his generous friend Francis Calley Gray. Unfortunately this work only reached the fourth volume. The first volume contained as introduction the universally-known and much-discussed "Essay on Classification," which latter, as a separate work, was published in London in 1859, and in an enlarged French translation in Paris, 1869. Agassiz treated in this work the questions of the origin, development, and systematic arrangement of the organic world, and developed from these his philosophical views which he had obtained from his own studies and observations, and which stand in direct opposition to the Theory of Descent.

Agassiz's collections had grown so enormously that the accommodation at his disposal was quite inadequate. By the liberality of Mr. F. C. Gray and the State of Massachusetts, as well as Cambridge University, a great Natural History Museum was begun in June 1859, and by December was so far advanced, that the greater part of Agassiz's collections could be transferred to it. From this time the improvement and completion of this museum became the chief object of Agassiz's activity. He aimed at making it in comprehensiveness and suitability for its purpose, a pattern institution for the whole world, and fitted to give the friends of natural history all possible help in their researches. The Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy is much better known to the public of Cambridge and Boston as "Agassiz's Museum."

In 1864-65, Agassiz somewhat broke down from his continued labours, and he was advised to travel. He decided to visit Brazil, the fish of which furnished him with the subject of his first work. With six assistants he left New York in April, 1865, for Rio Janeiro. The party divided to work in various directions, Agassiz, himself, selecting the Amazon as his sphere, sailed up the river to Manaos, at the Mouth of the Rio Negro, and thence to Tabatinga. During the journey from Pará to Manaos 300 species of fish were collected, of which one half were drawn from life by Burkhardt. His headquarters were at Teffe and Manaos, where he studied the habits of the fish in their migrations in the main stream, and several of its tributaries. While he stayed here, his assistants explored some of the other tributaries of the Amazon, while others explored the regions on the Rio Francisco, Rio Doce, Paranahyba, &c. In July of the following year Agassiz returned to the United States with such a collection of booty as would have filled another Museum. With the co-operation of Agassiz, his wife, the true companion of her husband, and full of sympathy for his ideas, brought out the journal of these remarkable travels, which in a short time reached a sixth edition in America, and was translated into French in 1869.

Again, in the end of 1871, Agassiz left for South America, on board the war-ship Hassler. Count Pour

tales, in this well-known expedition, had charge of the deep-sea researches, while Dr. Steindachner with Agassiz, was responsible for the other zoological collections. The results of this expedition are well known to naturalists. The leisurely cruise along the coast of Patagonia and Chili gave Agassiz an opportunity of studying the glacial phenomena of South America. His stay in San Francisco and Sacramento gave an impulse of the greatest importance to education and science in these towns, and in the latter led to the creation of a Natural History Society, which was named after him, the Agassiz Institute.

The history of the Penikese School of Natural History must be so fresh in the memory of our readers that we need not here repeat the details. The success of the school, modelled somewhat after that of Dohrn, at Naples, exceeded all expectation, the accommodation being quite inadequate for the number of students who appeared. At the end of the first summer his pupils bade him a long good-bye in the hope of meeting their muchloved master next year. But the additional burden seems to have been too great for the strength of the never-resting devotee of science. After scarcely eight days' illness, he died at Cambridge, December 14, 1873, in his sixty-third year, in the height of his fame. He has been justly named by his fellow-citizens of the States the "Humboldt of America." Ever amiable and open in intercourse, stimulating and instructive, clear and concise in exposition, was Agassiz; and his numerous pupils, of whom several have developed into important workers in science, as Alex. Agassiz, Stimpson, Putnam, Shaler, Wilder, Morse, &c., "clung to him with truly child-like love and respect. The news of his unexpectedly sudden death shocked the whole population deeply, for America had lost in him one of her citizens of whom she had the best right to be proud.

Besides Dr. Steindachner's paper, we would refer the reader who desires further details to a paper in the Revue des Deux Mondes for July and August, 1875.

WATERTON'S LIFE AND TRAVELS Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, and the Antilles, in the Years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824. With Original Instructions for the Perfect Preservation of Birds, &c., for Cabinets of Natural History. By Charles Waterton. New Edition. Edited, with Biographical Introduction and Explanatory Index, by the Rev. J. G. Wood. With 100 Illustrations. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879.)

THE

HE reading world will feel grateful to both author and publisher for this handsome edition of one of our classical books of travel and natural history; while those who are already familiar with the work will read with interest and pleasure the excellent biographical notice of Waterton here given. We have first a sketch of his school and college life, when his taste for natural history got him into many scrapes; but we learn that the Jesuit fathers at Stonyhurst wisely utilised his irrepressible love of animals by making him rat-catcher and general vermin-killer to the establishment. We next find him travelling on the Continent, where he had a narrow escape of dying of the plague at Malaga. He visited Gibraltar, and saw a whole colony of the well-known apes which were then far more abundant than now. He speculates on the "tremendous convulsion of nature" which had

-a

opened the channel of the Straits, observing that—“if apes had been on Gibraltar when the sudden shock occurred, these unlucky mimickers of man would have seen their late intercourse with Africa quite at an end"passage which recalls to us those extreme catastrophist doctrines in geology which are now happily extinct. When his wanderings in South America were at an end he settled down in his ancestral Yorkshire home, Walton Hall, devoting himself to the management of his estate and the study of nature, and living a life of the most Spartan simplicity. His single room had neither bed nor carpet. He always lay on the bare boards with a blanket wrapped round him, and with an oaken block by way of pillow. He went to bed at eight, and was up, dressed and clean shaven every morning at four, having himself lit a fire and boiled water to shave with. His devotions and reading occupied him till six; his bailiff's report, writing and business till eight, his breakfast hour; so that he had done a fair day's work before most people are out of bed. His room was at the very top of the house; he never touched fermented liquors, and took very little meat.

His great delight was in studying the habits of birds and other wild animals; and he devoted his park of over 250 acres to this purpose. He had moats, and ponds, and swamps, woods and trees of all kinds; and he spent 10,000l. in surrounding the whole with a wall nowhere less than eight feet high, in order to keep out poachers and animal intruders. In this domain no gun was ever fired or anything done to disturb the feathered inhabitants. The very year after the wall was finished the herons came and established themselves in the park, where they had never bred before; and, as Mr. Wood remarks, it is strange that they should have known that the wall, which they themselves could so easily pass, would be any protection to them. He constructed a yew fortress for pheasants, built a cat-proof tower for starlings, and a lofty dovecot to secure his pigeons from poachers. Owls and titmice and many other birds had special haunts constructed for them, while rats and other bird-enemies were carefully trapped or poisoned.

Waterton was one of the kindest and most humane of men. He studied the comforts of his horses, his dogs, and even of his pigs, as if they had been human beings. He had his gates specially constructed so that his horses and cows could lean over them and converse together, without inconvenience to themselves or injury to the gates. When he took possession of a deserted country house in Demerara, tenanted by frogs and snakes, owls and vampires, he tells us in his quaint language,-"The frogs, and here and there a snake, received that attention which the weak in this world generally experience from the strong, and which the law commonly denominates an ejectment. But here neither the frogs nor serpents were ill-treated; they sallied forth, without buffet or rebuke, to choose their place of residence; the world was all before them. The owls went away of their own accord, preferring to retire to a hollow tree rather than to associate with their new landlord. The bats and vampires stayed with me, and went in and out as usual." Even when, going down the St. Lawrence, he caught, crawling on his neck, the only bug he saw in North America, he “thought of my uncle Toby and the fly ;" and so, instead of killing it, he "quietly chucked it among some baggage that was

close by, and recommended it to get ashore by the first opportunity."

Any wild animals that he does not actually want for specimens he treats in the same way, and it is therefore not surprising that he looks favourably on the Indian and his mode of life. Ignorant travellers and colonists call the Indians a lazy race; "but," he remarks, "man in general will not be active without an object. When an Indian has got plenty to eat, what need has he to work? He has no idea of making pleasure-grounds. Money is of no use to him as there are no markets for him to go to, nor milliners' shops for his wife and daughters. He has no taxes to pay, no highways to keep up, no poor to maintain, no army nor navy to supply. He lies in his hammock both night and day (for he has no chair nor bed, neither does he want them), and in it he forms his bow, and makes his arrows, and repairs his fishing-tackle. But when his provisions are gone he rouses himself, and scours the forest in quest of food. He plunges into the river after the deer and tapir, or passes through swamps and quagmires, and never fails to obtain food. Should the approach of night check him while hunting, he lays him down in the forest and continues the chase the next morning till he is successful. With us the poor or needy man has to work every day and all day long for a maintenance, but should this man acquire a fortune he usually changes his habits." Waterton then amusingly sketches for us the life of an idle man for a single day, and concludes:-"Now, could the Indian in his turn see this, he would call the white men a lazy, indolent set. Perhaps, then, upon due reflection, you would draw this conclusion: that men will always be indolent when there is no object to rouse them."

Not even Gilbert White was a closer or more accurate observer of the habits of animals than was Waterton, and had he recorded all his observations during the forty years he lived at Walton Hall we should have had a work in no "Selborne." There is one way inferior to White's curious observation of his which throws some light on the origin of one of the superstitions of natural history, but which seems to have been entirely overlooked. The name Caprimulgus, or "goat-sucker," has its equivalent in many European languages; and the belief that this bird sucked goats or cows has been prevalent since the time of Aristotle. The only foundation for this widespread belief, suggested in any ornithological book to which I have access, is, that the goat-sucker is often found near sheep-folds and cattle-pens on account of the abundance of insects in such places. Pliny however says that they enter the folds and fly to the udders of the goats in order to suck the milk. This is a much more definite statement, and, strange to say, Waterton supports the fact thus stated by his own observation, and at the same time shows how the erroneous inference arose from this fact. At p. 233 of this volume we find the following:-"I am fully persuaded that these innocent little birds never suck the herds; for when they approach them, and jump up at their udders, it is to catch the flies and insects there. When the moon shone bright I would frequently go and stand within three yards of a cow, and distinctly see the caprimulgus catch the flies on its udder." The passages marked in italics are most remarkable, since they directly confirm Pliny's statement that the birds "fly

to the udders of the goats." It is not quite clear by the context whether Waterton made this observation in Demerara or in England. He is describing the habits of the Demerara goat-suckers at the time, but as he has said nothing about there being any cows on the deserted estate where he was staying, he may in this passage be referring to his observations at home.

In another passage at p. 198 this is certainly the case. He says (according to his custom addressing his reader as if speaking to him):

"When the moon shines bright you may have a fair opportunity of examining the goat-sucker. You will see it close by the cows, goats, and sheep, jumping up every Approach a little now and then under their bellies. nearer, see how the nocturnal flies are tormenting the herd, and with what dexterity he springs up and catches them, as fast as they alight on the belly, legs, and udder of the animals. Observe how quiet they stand, and how sensible they seem of his good offices, for they neither strike him, nor hit him with their tail, nor tread on him, nor try to drive him away as an uncivil intruder."

There can be no doubt that these are Waterton's own observations at home, though expressed rather generally ; but the other passage, at all events, written in the first person, is far too definite a statement to be doubted, coming from such an observer; and it is curious that no modern writer on the subject appears to have referred to it.

As a capturer of snakes Waterton was pre-eminent, his fight with the great boa constrictor, and his capture singlehanded of a smaller one, which he allowed to coil round his body while he held its neck in his two hands, are wellknown incidents in his "Wanderings;" but Mr. Wood tells us how he coolly manipulated live rattlesnakes in the presence of a number of friends at Leeds, transferring them from one box to another with his bare hands. His secret was, simply, that if a snake is not frightened by noise or sudden movements, its natural sluggishness prevents it from resenting cautious handling.

We quite agree with the editor that few books have ever been written so thoroughly truthful and accurate, and so entirely free from exaggeration as those of Waterton; yet his veracity was often doubted by his reviewers, and he was classed among travellers of the Munchausen type. This however he little cared for, but he did not like to be called eccentric. He thought himself the most ordinary of human beings, though he climbed trees barefoot and never in his life wore a black coat. "Yet," as Mr. Wood well says of him, "had he not been eccentric he would not have been the Charles Waterton so long known and loved. . . . It was eccentric to come into a large estate as a young man, and to have lived to extreme old age without having wasted an hour or a shilling. It was eccentric to give bountifully and never allow his name to appear in a subscription list. It was eccentric to be saturated with the love of nature. It might be eccentric never to give dinner-parties, preferring to keep an always open house for his friends; but it was a very agreeable kind of eccentricity. It was eccentric to be ever childlike but never childish. We might multiply instances of his eccentricity to any extent, and may safely say that the world would be much better than it is if such eccentricity were more common."

So far we have had only praise for this book, and