Pamphlets on Zoology 1865-1888

1865-1888. First editions.

UNIQUE BOUND COLLECTION OF SIGNED OFFPRINTS BY ALPHEUS HYATT INSCRIBED TO HIS COLLEAGUE ALPHEUS PACKARD--BOTH LEADING NEO-LAMARCKIAN AMERICAN ZOOLOGISTS.

9 inches tall hardcover, 3/4 black leather binding with marbled paper-covered boards, expertly rebacked in black cloth with black leather label title gilt, bookplate of Bowdoin College Library--withdrawn to front paste-down (no other library marks), hand-lettered title page, wood engraving of Prof. Alpheus Hyatt cut out from journal affixed to verso of Emerson obituary. Contains 23 key offprints by Alpheus Hyatt collected and bound in chronological order by Alpheus Spring Packard, his colleague. The volume is in very good condition with few scattered marginal pencil notations presumably by Packard. The first offprint is signed by AS Packard and 14 of the remaining ones are signed by the author. TITLES INCLUDE: Fresh water polyzoa occurring in Maine, Observations on polyzoa sub-order Phyloactolaemata, The fossil cephalopods of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, On reversions among the ammonites. On the geological survey of Essex County, The non-reversionary series of the Liparoceratidae, and remarks upon the series of the allied family Dactyloidae, Evolution of the Arietidae, Genetic relations of the Angulatidae, Remarks on two new genera of ammonites, Agassiceras and Oxynoticeras, Biological relations of the Jurassic ammonites. The Jurassic and Cretaceous ammonites, collected in South America by Prof. James Orton with an appendix upon the cretaceous ammonites of Prof. Hartt's collection, Genetic relations of Stephanoceras, Sponges considered as a distinct sub-kingdom of animals, Remarks on the porphyries of Marblehead, Transformations of Planorbis at Steinheim, with remarks on the effects of gravity upon the forms of shells and animals, Genera of fossil cephalopods, Fossil cephalopoda in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, The larval theory of the origin of cellular tissue, Values in classification of the stages of growth and decline with propositions for a new nomenclature, Evolution of the faunas of the lower Lias. A complete detailed list of offprints is available on request (email info@biomedrarebooks.com).

ALPHEUS HYATT (1838 - 1902) was an American zoologist and palaeontologist. After graduating from Harvard University in 1862, he enlisted as a private in the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry for the Civil War, emerging with the rank of captain. After the war he worked for a time at the Essex Institute (now the Peabody Essex Museum) in Salem, Massachusetts. He and a colleague founded American Naturalist and Hyatt served as editor from 1867 to 1870. He became a professor of paleontology and zoology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1870, where he taught for eighteen years, and was professor of biology and zoology at Boston University from 1877 until his death in 1902. He also served as curator of the Boston Society of Natural History, and established a laboratory at the Norwood-Hyatt House in 1879 for the study of Marine Biology in Annisquam, Massachusetts. This enterprise was moved to Woods Hole and became the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in 1888. Hyatt studied under Louis Agassiz and was a proponent of Neo-Lamarckism with Edward Drinker Cope. In 1875 he was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. He and his wife, Audella Beebe, were the parents of famed sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington.

PROVENANCE: ALPHEUS SPRING PACKARD, JR. (1839 - 1905) was an American entomologist and palaeontologist. He described over 500 new animal species - especially butterflies and moths - and was one of the founders of The American Naturalist. He was Professor of Zoology and Geology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island from 1878 until his death. Like his colleague Alpheus Hyatt, he was a vocal proponent of the Neo-Lamarckian theory of evolution.