Karl Ernst von Baer, the Russian naturalist, a pupil of Döllinger in Würzburg, devoted himself chiefly to the study of embryology and made valuable discoveries.
Passing by many illustrious names, we come to that of Sir Richard Owen, of whom it has been said that “from the sponge to man, he has thrown light over every subject he has touched.” His work in the Hunter Museum, his descriptions and restorations of extinct birds and animals, and his original works on every branch of animal life, form an enormous contribution to the progress of science. He promulgated the advanced views of John Hunter, the great physiologist and surgeon, of whose famous museum of more than ten thousand specimens, illustrative of anatomy and natural history, he became curator.
Three names shine with especial lustre upon the Nineteenth Century—Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. The theory of evolution first appeared in De Maillet’s work, Telliamed, published in 1758, but written in 1735. More than thirty writers before Darwin treated this theory, among whom were Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, Lamarck, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Largely owing to the opposition of Cuvier, it never succeeded until it was revived by Charles Darwin, who, after twenty-one years of work, published his results in 1858 in the Journal of the Linnæan Society, followed in the next year by The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (see pages 1482-1512 of Vol. IV).
“The lifeless earth,” says Sir Robert Ball, “is the canvas on which has been drawn the noblest picture that modern science has produced. It is Darwin who has drawn this picture. He has shown that the evolution of the lifeless earth from the nebula is but the prelude to an organic evolution of still greater interest and complexity. He has taken up the history of the earth at the point where the astronomer left it, and he has made discoveries which have influenced thought and opinion more than any other discoveries that have been made for centuries.”
The neglected department of Marine Zoology the Nineteenth Century has made particularly its mission to investigate, but space only permits mention of four names: Edward Forbes, Lord Kelvin (Sir Wyville Thomson), Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, and the Prince of Monaco.
The first, whom Lord Kelvin considers “the most accomplished and original naturalist of his time,” was a pupil of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Jussieu, and De Blainville. He is regarded as the originator of the use of the dredge for collecting specimens and the first who undertook the systematic study of Marine Zoology with reference to the distribution of fauna. In 1859 his Natural History of the European Seas appeared after his death.
One of the most important investigators in this line is Prof. Haeckel, famous for his studies of the lower class of marine animals. He is also distinguished for his researches in other branches of Zoology and Palæontology, and was one of the first followers of Darwin in Germany.
Entomology has also made enormous progress during the Nineteenth Century. At the end of the Seventeenth Century, Ray estimated the number of insects throughout the world at 10,000 species! The great entomologists of the Eighteenth Century include Linnæus, De Geer, and Fabricius. Next follow Latreille, Kirby and Spence, and a host of distinguished scientists in Europe and the United States, of whom Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) heads the list. A comparatively new line of investigation is that of the Chalcididæ (see Fairy Flies, pages 1449-1458, in Vol. IV).