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Museum of Comparative Zoology UNIVERSITY
_ NEWSLETTER |
1 June 1965 if c| Harvard University

Published Now and Then. ‘et S Cambridge, Mass. 02138

Thayer Expedition Centennial

During the winter of 1864-65, Louis Agassiz closed a series
of lectures at the Lowell Institute with the suggestion that it
would be a contribution of.the greatest value if a naturalist were
to explore Brazil. Nathaniel Thayer, one of Boston's wealthiest
businessmen and a trustee of the museum, offered to defray the
expenses of an exploring party. As with all of Agassiz's projects,
the undertaking grew enormcus overnight, and the planned scientific
enterprise took on aspects of. an educational and. social mission.
Agassiz's wife accompanied him, along with assistant naturalists
J-A- Allen, ornithologist, J.G. Anthony, conchologist, QO. St.John,
paleontologist, and C.F. Hartt, geologist, and six Harvard students,
including \illiam James.

The Thayer Expedition left New York on 1 April, 1865, and
returned on 6 August, 1866. Activities were concentrated for
three months in the environs of Rio de Janeiro and for the remainder
of the time in the lush tropical jungles and slow-moving streams
of the Amazon Valley. Agassiz and his assistants collected over
eighty thousand items of natural history. A highly original phase
of the expedition -was that Agassiz lectured to students and assis-
tants on hoard the "Colorado" and in camp along the route. In
these talks, the professor taught his young disciples how to collect,
identify, label.and sort: materials, and discussed the significance
of particular groups of natural objects...

adapted from "Louis Agassiz" by E. Lurie

The Museum celebrated the.centennial of the Agassiz-Thayer
expedition to Brazil with three lectures by George Sprague Myers,
Curator of Fishes and Professor of Biology at Stanford University.
The lectures, given on 3; 5, and 6 May, were entitled "Louis Agassiz,
Nathaniel Thayer, and the Thayer Expedition," "Amazonian Fishes
and their Ways," and."Problems in South American Ichthyology."
Following the May 3rd lecture, about 100 guests and the senior
staff members with their wives attended a reception in the Sea
Serpent room.

-In Brazil, the oreceniis and the National Museum also com-
memorated the expedition with a series of lectures, an Agassiz
Week, late in ira.

Prof. Simpson Honored

mse aa hat Simpson has been awarded the Daniel Giraud
Elliot tledal of the National. Academy of Sciences. He is the first
man to have received the award twice. The Elliot Medal is given
in recognition of published works in zoology or paleontology. It
was presented to Simpson for his book, "Principles of Animal
Taxonomy,"published in 1961 by Columbia University Press. He was
awarded his first Elliot Medal for "Tempo and Mode in Evolution."

o 2 x

Dr. Whittington Returns from Sabbatical

Dr. Whittington spent his Sabbatical leave, February to
September, 1964, doing field work and museum study in Britain,
southern France and Czechoslovakia. In Poland he was guest of the
Polish Academy of Sciences for a ten day visit to the Geological
Institute.

Dr. Levi Just Back from South America

Herbert Levi has just returned after spending three months in
South America in pursuit of various appealing invertebrates, es=
pecially spiders. In Peru he found entomologists actively interested
in spiders as biological controls for insect pests. From the coastal
deserts he brought back living specimens of Sicarius, a spider that
can dig itself into the fine sand of its habitat. (Plans to rear
the species in captivity were abandoned when the female spider ate
her intended mate.)

In Chile he had a reunion with Patricio Sanchez, a shaking-=up
in the recent severe earthquake, and the gratifying experience of
having certain specimens come flocking to him -— terrestrial leeches
abound in some forests.

In Tucuman he saw the Laurents and in Santiago del Estero,
collaborating with Dr. J. abalos on local black-widow problems,
received official thanks from the Department of Public Health.

In Brazil he found the University and the National Museum
preparing to celebrate the centennial of the Agassiz-Thayer Expeditior
He visited P. Vanzolini and was given royal treatment at the Sdo
Paulo Museum, met several arachnological colleagues, and collected
in the Organ Mountains with Mr. J. Becker of the National Museum.
Coming home in mid-April, he found early spring in New England
rather bleak compared to the lush South American summer.

AE the request of the Government of India and through the auspices
of the F.A.0O., Ruth Turner made a two and one-half month tour of
the laboratories concerned with the study of marine boring and fouling
organisms and the protection of wood in the sea, for the purpose of
advising on the work being done, to aid in the planning of future
work and to make recommendations concerning all phases of the work,
equipment, and organization of the "Scheme for the Protection of
Wood in the Sea.". Though a program for protection of timbers against —
marine borers has been in existence since 1953, the main emphasis
has been on the testing and durability of native woods using various
types of treatments and untreated controls. The general attitude
has been that the species involved were not important, but only the
extent of damage and the means to prevent the losses caused. Correct
identification of the species found in India is the first problem
to be solved. Once this has been done it will be possible to begin
biological work on a firm basis, to conduct controlled experiments,
and commence anatomical and physiological studies.

Ruth, in hot pursuit of a possible biological control for
certain borers, expects to be in Europe this coming summer.

a oe

Dr. Deichmann Active in Retirement

Dr. Elisabeth Deichmann was guest of honor at a gathering
of echinoderm specialists and MCZ staff and wives on 26 June last
year, and was presented with an engraved tray bearing signatures of
echinologists throughout the world, representing about twenty countric
United States echinologists came from as far as Miami and Durhan,
New Hampshire, and messages and cables were received from Holland,
Russia, Australia and Japan, expressing good wishes for a happy and
productive retirement.

Liska, active as ever, reports on her recent trip: "In the
first half of August 1964, I went to Miami and worked at the
station there (University of ifiami) and went also to the Bahamas to
study some sea cucumbers with Carol Mosher.

"Continued by Volkswagen westward to Boulder, Colorado, where
I gave a talk about the present status of echinoderm work at a
conference held by the AIBS. Being so far west it seemed silly
not to go out to the west coast, which I did. Stayed for a while
with Capt. Fred Ziesenhenne in Los Angeles and visited former
students Phil Adams at California State College and Abraham Flemings
at La Jolla. Took the coastal highway up to Hopkins ilarine Station,
Pacific Grove, old stamping ground for 40 years, northwards to
Dillon Beach to visit Hedgpeth and made calls at Corvallis, Seattle,
and Nanaimo, each place being roped in to work on Holothurians.
Drove across the Canadian Rockies and back, via Minnesota, arriving
home 18 October.

"Headed southward again on 15 December, and flew to Jamaica
where I worked with Dr. F.M. Bayer and Dr. Tom Goreau. After
Christmas I stayed until 14 February at the station in Miami and
worked on Dr. Bayer's new Caribbean Fauna. Carol Mosher came over
for a few days from the Bahamas to take part in field trips and go
over the Bahamian holothurians with me. Pinch-hitting for Dr.

. Harding Owre, I gave some of her lectures when one of the viruses
struck her. Returned 1 March 1965, and have been busy ever since."

Marine Invertebrates Receives Grant

Dr. Fell's task of.refurbishing and equipping the Department
of Marine Invertebrates will be greatly expedited by a three year
NSF grant, just received, for equipment and travel.

The Fells' fieldwork this past year has been restricted almost
entirely to observational studies of the ecology of Homo sapiens
in the New England environment. Having found a home they are now
vigorously gardening on the weekends. In the evenings and on wet
saturdays, a facelift is being applied to the marine invertebrates
area on the 4th floor. Among the projects under way is the instal-
lation of a dark-room and histology lab.

A new arrival to the department has been Dr. John H. Dearborn
who comes to us on a two-year NSF postdoctoral fellowship to study
deepwater and Antarctic echinoderms. He previously took part in
stanford University's Antarctic Program, and has carried out extensi-
field work in Ross Sea faunas. He and his wife Beth, and son Mark,
are now living in Arlington.

The museum staff and students will soon bid farewell to Dr. W.
Newman and family, who are returning to the University of California.
Bill's activity among the marine invertebrates for the past two

years has been a stimulating influence.

‘Sau

Cruise VI of Research Vessel "Anton Bruun"

The ifuseum has rapidly become one of the few important centers
for research in the taxonomy and distribution of bathypelagic fishes.
Dr. Giles Mead, who was Chief Scientist for Cruise VI of the
R/V "Anton Bruun" (the former presidential yacht "Williamsburg" )
has provided some details about last summer's cruise. "It was one
of two,cruises planned as-a collaborative effort to study the changes
in the bathypelagic fauna of the Indian Ocean as ‘one proceeds from
the northern part of the Arabian Sea south to subantarctic waters.
The work of the Anton Bruun, supported by the National Science
Foundation, is'a part of the American Program in Biology, Internatione
Indian Ocean Expedition. Accordingly, Dr. Mead proceeded to Bombay
via Zanzibar and was joined there by iir. R.L. Haedrich; - Mr. Basil
Nafpaktitis joined the vessel in Mauritius. The cruise terminated
in Durban in mid-June. The principle objective was the collection
of bathypelagic organisms. After preliminary ‘study, much of this
material will be permanently deposited in the MCZ.

"Ecological. and systematic findings will be forthcoming,’ and
some of the more important results can not now even be predicted.
But two catches are of obvious and unique zoological interest. First —
the Capture of a larval stage of a cyematid, eel, one that is bright
red in color, in contrast to the absolute transparency of all other :
known: eel larvae. The second exciting specimen is a metamorphosing
eel, over a meter long, that seems referable to the "giant lepto- :
cephalus" caught years ago by the Danish DANA and subject to world- :
wide public interest. .

"Relatively few marine mammals were seen, but the sea birds i
seen during the second half were numerous and magnificent." :

Paleontologists Dig in Argentina

Of his recent trip Dr. Romer writes: "As you know, Arnie Lewis,

. Jim Jensen, my wife and I have just returned from five months in

Argentina. We went to attempt to find a new vertebrate horizon
earlier than the rather late Triassic one which we discovered in
1958. After two months of complete failure, we struck it rich, and
uncovered a spectacularly good‘ éarly Triassic fauna; a formation in
which we collected more than 150 excellent skulls as well as all
sorts aa post-cranial material."

Dr. te to Represent Society of Vertebrate Paleontology

In August, Dr. Edinger is to be one of the delegates of the
SVP to the 8th International Congress of Anatomists in Wiesbaden,
and the World.Federation of Neurology's "Symposium on Phylogenesis
and Ontogenesis of the Forebrain" in Frankfurt am Main.

At the. November meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
in Gainesville, Florida, only Tilly Edinger of the Society's eight
MCZ members was actually present, but Dr. Edinger, then President,
opened the "business" session by reading a greetings +P ene just
received, from our expedition in Argentina.

-5-
: ammalogist in Africa Africa

C.R. taylor, Associate in. Mammalogy , is in East Africa ona
four year NIH grant, studying water metabolism of ungulates. He
wrote in a recent letter: "I have just returned from the Northern
Frontier of Kenya, Karamoja in Uganda and the Southern Sudan. I
have been working on Turkana cattle. To the Turkana nothing is as
valuable as a cow. Being forewarned, I equipped myself with 95 lbs.
of tobacco (even the smallest child chews), a case of beer, and
pieces of cloth. The bargaining for the use of the cattle was long
and difficult. As. soon as: one would agree the others would say
‘this enemy will kill all your cattle' and we would have to start
over again. My help in capturing a murderer greatly improved
relations and I was able to get some work done. In the Southern
Sudan and northern Turkana there were a good number of people who
had never seen auto or white man. The car was a 'cow' and I painted
myself."

Further experiences ‘are described. in a letter published in the

Harvard Alumni Bulletin for 17 ate 1965, "An Auto is a Cow with
Eyes." —

Pee peau ce

Prof. Ernst Mayr was elected this spring to the American
Philosophical Society. He is also President elect of the Society
of Systematic Zoology. —
| Prof. Romer is the new President elect of the AAAS. He is
introduced to the association members in an appealing sketch by
Bryan Patterson in SCIENCE for 19 February 1965.

For the year ending in November, Dr. Pee vtangeor is Seuweee
as President of the Paleontological Society.

_ Prof. Simpson will receive an Sc.D. degree on 10 June from:

Cambridge University, Cambridge, England.

Dr. Levi has been elected Vice-president of the spider society,
the Centre International de Documentation Arachnologique.

Dr. Lyman has been appointed to the Physiology Study Section
of the National Institutes of Health. —

Drs. Clench and Turner were in New Orleans for the meetings
of the AMU, as was Dick Johnson. Dr. Clench presented a series of
five lectures in Florida in February.

‘Entomology has has New Assistant Curator
Dr. John Francis Lawrence was appointed Assistant Curator of
Insects in June 1964. Dr. Lawrence comes to us from the University
of soe isagel Berkeley.
Richard Winslow Foster
Richard Winslow. Foster,.Associate in Mollusks, died in Rome

on 3 September 1964, .at the age of 45. Associated with the MCZ
Since 1940, Dick had many friends here. .

« 6 =»
Horace J. Sawin

Horace J. Sawin, "Hod" to his friends, a vertebrate paleontologi:
who took his degree in the ifuseum in the '30's, died suddenly of a
heart attack a few weeks ago at his home in Newcastle, Delaware.
He had spent the greater part of his career in Texas, and during
this time published several important papers on fossil reptiles and
amphibians. In his latter years, however, he had turned to admin-
istrative work at the University of Houston, and later at the
University of Delaware. (A.S. Romer)

Visitors

Dr. K.S.W. Campbell, of the National University of Australia,
arrived early in May to work as a Research Fellow under a NSF grant
in the Department of Invertebrate Paleontology. He will be with us
until December.

Dr. N.D. Newell of the American ifuseum of Natural History and
Columbia University visited the MCZ on Friday,14 May. Dr. Newell
is particularly interested in the problem of extinction and met
with members of the MCZ having similar interests for an informal
"Bull Session" on the subject. Ta

Prof. Leif Stérmer, Director of the Geological Institute,
Oslo, Norway, authority on fossil arthropods, will be with us as
Visiting Alexander Agassiz Professor from September 1965 until
June 1966.

STUDENTS: Present, Past, and Future

Richard Haedrich won the Stoye prize for the best ichthyological
paper presented by a student at last summer's national meeting of
the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists at
Morehead City, N.C. iir. Haedrich, who expects to finish his Ph.D.
work this coming summer, has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship
that will enable him to continue the study of bathypelagic fishes
in Denmark, 1965-66.
John Musick has participated in three cruises of the U.S.
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries R/V Albatross IV, in connection with
his dissertation research. :
Invertebrate paleontologist Frederick Shaw took his final
examination for the Ph.D. in April and is now teaching at Holyoke.
iiss Amy Levowitz, from Queens College, arrived this semester
to begin study and research on sea-stars toward her Ph.D. |
Jon Reiskind plans a spider-watching expedition to Costa Rica
this summer. Bill Eberhardt has been accepted to graduate school
and will continue his promising research into the behavior of orb-
weaving spiders. He has been invited by Dr. Peter Witt to spend
several weeks at the Upstate Medical Center of the University of
New York, in Syracuse, observing the pharmacological experiments
with orb-weavers. Joe Beatty, after a year at Duke University, will
return for the summer to complete his Ph.D. thesis, and next fall
will go to the University of Southern Illinois. Allen Brady is
moving from Hope College in Holland, Michigan to Albion College
next fall; the Bradys have a new baby: Melinda Louise arrived on
10 January. Jeff Donat, in his work with scorpions, has learned to
handle them with bottle forceps: even the docile species know how
to use that stinger. We are looking forward to the arrival of
Larry Pinter, coming to us from UCLA and Los Angeles State, to
continue graduate studies here next fall.

he

R. Thorington, just returned from South America, is with the
Harvard Primates Center. John Hayward, post-doctoral from the
University of British Columbia is working with the Mammalogy Dept.
Tom Frazzetta is doing post-doctoral investigation of snake feeding.
Graduate student George Gorwan is interested in lizard behavior
and chromosomes; Allen Greér in skink skulls, viviparity and adap-
tation. Stanley Rand is now on the staff at Barro Colorado Island.
David Norton will leave for his third summer of bird collecting in
Ecuador, to be joined in September by R.A. Paynter, Jr. Bob Jenkins,
Fred Coyle and ilargaret Jones will be doing field work in Costa Rica
this summer. Tom Fisner spent a year in Holland working with
Dr. DeWilde. Walter Bock is joining the Department of Zoology at
Columbia University. Terry Hamilton has spenta year in England.
Ira Rubinoff is going to Panama as Zoologist for the Smithsonian
Institution Biological Area.

Currently working in the Mollusk department are Barry Wilson,
post-doctoral from Australia, Jose Stuardo, special student from
Chile, and Iiichael Ghiselin, post-doctoral from California. Vida
Kenk is on the way to Fiji on the TeVega. Joe Rosewater and Bob
Robertson have put in some time on the TeVega, and Ken Boss on the
Anton Bruun. Arthur Clarke continues his field work in the Hudson
Bay drainage system. Ed ifichelson is giving a course in medically
important mollusks at the Harvard School of Tropical Medicine.

Joe Vagvolgyi is now at Brooklyn College in New York. Don McMichael
has had a field trip to Swains Reef in the Coral Sea.

William Sill, from Brigham Young, Roger Wood from Princeton,
and Eleanor Adam, Radcliffe honors candidate, are working with
Prof. Patterson.

Francois Vuilleumier reports in a letter to Dr. Mayr:
"IT am now completing a short stay in NW Peru, and have found it
very rewarding. I was able to visit the isolated Amotape Mountains
near the border with Ecuador, and to take a trip into the Andes.
This year just happens to be exceedingly wet (fluctuations in the
vegetation and bird-life were described by Marchant in Ibis, and by
iWurphy earlier).-- the rains were prolonged way beyond their normal
periog. As a result the roads are impassable and the trip across
the Andes to Huancabamba and to the dry Marafion impossible. I would
have to wait about a month to go there. The pleasant side is that
I have been able to compare the conditions in both normal and
exceptional years (last year in the Guayaquil region, and this year
in NW Peru). The luxuriance of the vegetation in areas that are
normally sandy wastes with only a few bushes made it possible for
birds to invade vast areas that suddenly became suitable habitats.
There is even one bird, a handsome tanager, that apparently breeds
on the western slopes of the Andes only in the wet years (i.e. every
beet 8 years), possibly coming across the Andes from the eastern
slope.
Guy Bush writes from the University of Melbourne: "Australia
is an entomological paradise. The two major components of the
arthropod fauna appear to be spiders and ants. The latter get into
your sleeping bag and sting you at every opportunity and the former
occur in such huge numbers that they continually mutilate my flies
in the net before I can rescue them. I have collected a few but
it would take an experienced arachnologist a life-time to make a
small dent in this spider fauna.”

oo i de

Library News

Connie Carter, who has been on leave for the past year,has
received one of the top awards made annually to library school
Students -~- an internship at the Library of Congress. She will
receive her M.A. in Library Science in August from the University of
North Carolina and will start immediately at the Library of Congress.
Connie, in her generous fashion, says she owes it all to her training
at MCZ.

New members of the library staff are Auriel Pilgrim from Barbados
west Indies, who attended the University of West Indies, Annelies
Zechel of Vienna, who attended the Gymnasium there, and Déla Zitkus
who was born in Lithuania and went to the University of Seattle, a
Jesuit institution.

Mr. French has joined the library staff as "stack supervisor."

On 12 June, Karen Horn will be married to Ed Dooks, a photographe:
for the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, who has just been voted
Cameraman of the year by the Boston Press Photosraphers' Association.
Ed and Karen will live in the Cambridge area.

iiys. MacDonald attended the dedication ceremonies of the
Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School,
on 27 May.

The Library wishes to remind all graduate students to return
their books if they are not going to be in Cambridge during the
summer.

BOOKS

Dr. Darlington's "Biogeography of the Southern End of the World"
will soon appear, published by Harvard Press.

Dr. Henry Bigelow has published his "Memories of a Long and
Active Life." Though slim, the volume is replete with anecdotes,
reminiscences, and observations accumulated during his many expeditio
and Dr. Bigelow tells us some obscure details about the establishment
of the iWarine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, of which he was
the founding director.

Dr. Romer has completed a thorough revision of his "Vertebrate
Paleontology,"and it is about to go to press.

Dr. Whittington has published his "Trilobites of the Ordovician
Table Head Formation, Western Newfoundland," in the Bulletin,
vol. 132, pp. 275-442.

A revised edition of"Life, an Introduction © Biology” by
Simpson and Beck, has appeared.

From her post behind the counter of the Museum Shop, Iirs. Hall
observed that visitors to the exhibits needed a guide, and an
illustrated booklet,"About the Exhibits;" has been the result of her
interest. After a statement about the history and function of the
iWluseum, and a floor plan, the booklet presents brief, nontechnical
stories behind some of the rare and historic specimens in the Museum.

*

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