Jeffries Wyman

Jeffries Wyman (August 11, 1814 – September 4, 1874) was an American physician, naturalist, professor of anatomy at Harvard Medical School from 1847 to 1874, and curator of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology from 1867 to 1874. He was the president of the Boston Society of Natural History from 1856 to 1874.

Quotes

Among animals, two organs or parts, generally speaking, are said to be symmetrical when they are situated on opposite sides of an axis, and are alike in form and size, but one is the reverse of the other, as is everywhere obvious in those which are right and left. It is not to be understood, however, that this likeness is absolute; for while it very generally true that such right and left parts are alike in size and form, or very nearly so, it occasionally happens that they are very unlike in these respects, still retaining, however, a certain amount of symmetry. We have striking illustrations of this in the claws of many Crustaceans, as in Astacus and Gelasimus, and in the right and left halves of the body of Bopyrus. Among Acephalous Molluscs, this difference is in some cases, very remarkable as in Radilolites, Monopleura, etc., where one of the valves is conical and spirally twisted, while the other is quite flat, and in its relation to the other valve, resembles the operculum of certain Gastropods.
- On Symmetry and Homology in Limbs. Boston: A.A. Kingman. 1867. p. 4. (45 pages; reprint from the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. XI, June 5, 1867)

The former dwelling-places of the Aborigines of the United States are nowhere more plainly indicated than along the seaboard, where some of the tribes passed a portion, at least, of each year, in hunting and fishing; some no doubt living there permanently, while others, it appears, made visits only at stated periods. ... The clam, the quahog, the scallop, and the oyster, entered largely into their food, and the castaway shells of these, piled up in many years, have not only become monuments of their sea-shore life, but have largely aided in the preservation of the bones of the animals on which they fed, and also of some of the more perishable implements used in their rude arts.
- (January 1868) "An account of some kjoekkenmoeddings, or shell-heaps, in Maine and Massachusetts". The American Naturalist 1 (11): 561–584. (quote from p. 562)

From facts collected by Heusinger, it appears that white sheep and pigs are injured by certain plants, whilst dark-colored individuals escape: Professor Wyman has recently communicated to me a good illustration of this fact; on asking some farmers in Virginia how it was that all their pigs were black, they informed him that the pigs ate the paint-root (Lachnanthes), which colored their bones pink, and which caused the hoofs of all but the black varieties to drop off; and one of the "crackers" (i.e. Virginia squatters) added, "we select the black members of a litter for raising, as they alone have a good chance of living."
- Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species. Volume 11 of The Harvard Classics. New York: P. F. Collier & Son Company. 1909. p. 30. (552 pages; reprint, with addition of introduction & notes, of 1859 book On the Origin of Species)

His most fruitful journey, amid scenes he would often recall with keen delight, was that to Surinam. Leaving Cambridge in the spring of 1856, accompanied by his pupils, Green and Bancroft, we may be sure that immediately upon landing he visited the fish market of Surinam in search of Anableps, to whose unusual mode of gestation his attention had been called two years previous by Dr. Cragin, once United States consul at Paramaribo. In his canoe journey up the Surinam river, besides other objects, he collected specimens of the Surinam toad, whose singular metamorphoses he described. These were the optima spolia of this journey, though the Indians of the country must have been critically scanned with his observant, trained eye. But his opportunities for extensive study and exploration were hampered by a severe attack of the fever of the country, from which he recovered slowly.
- Alpheus Spring Packard, "Memoir of Jeffries Wyman, 1814-1874, read before the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, April 18, 1878". Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 2. 1886. pp. 75–126. (quote from p. 86; pdf at biographicalmemoirs.org)