Prof. Ernst Ehlers

Abstract

PROF. ERNST EHLERS was born on November n, 1835, in Liineburg in the kingdom of Hanover, where his early education, carefully supervised by his father, who was a merchant, was. received, and where the ancient buildings and historical surroundings doubtless had an influence on his sensitive mind. His training consisted of a good knowledge of classics, of history, mathematics, French, and chemistry, whilst his natural bent found a congenial field in faunistic works. He then (1857) proceeded southward to the University of Gottingen, where he energetically studied medicine and natural science, two subjects so intimately related, as all history shows, that the efforts of the late Scottish Universities Commission to separate them are vain. Amongst the professors there, none interested him more than W. Keferstein, R. Wagner, and Bodeker. There were comparatively few zoologists of the period who, like Ehlers, entered on their later studies with broad views and a thorough acquaintance with both vertebrate and invertebrate anatomy. It is true in his early days he had not the advantage of a life on the sea-coast and of familiarising himself with marine life from Protozoa to mammals, but he balanced this by his able researches on structure and by his skilful pencil, so that amongst the distinguished zoologists of the period he stands prominently forward.