WILDER, Burt Green, naturalist, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 11 August, 1841. He was graduated at the Lawrence scientific school in 1862 and at the medical department of Harvard in 1866. Meanwhile he served in the United States army as a medical cadet in 1862-'3 and as assistant surgeon and surgeon in the 55th Massachusetts volunteers in 1863-'5. In 1867 he was elected professor of physiology, comparative anatomy, and zoology in Cornell university, which chair he still holds, and he was also professor of physiology in the Medical school of Maine, Bowdoin college, in 1874-'84. His discovery in 1862 that silk might be drawn from a living spider to the extent of 150 yards at a time led to his further researches on the habits of the spider and the qualities and usefulness of the silk. Since 1880 he has devoted his attention mostly to studies on the vertebrate brain. He has also striven earnestly for the adoption of a uniform anatomical nomenclature, claiming that names should be as far as possible mononyms, and that in each language should be used the appropriate paronym of the Latin name rather than the Latin form. In 1887 he described the brain of cerotodus and showed that among vertebrates the proper cerebral hemispheres, the special organs of the mind, occupy five different positions relative to the olfactory tracts and bulbs, which are the direct continuations of the general brain axis and were probably the primitive and at first most important parts of the prosencephal. In brain publications he has insisted upon the morphological significance of the cavities, and upon the need of greater care and improved methods in dissection and preparation. In 1857 he described the slip system of notes, consisting of the brief statement of facts, ideas, or references to books, written lengthwise upon slips equal to the sixth part of a sheet of note-paper. He also uses these slips for correspondence, and in 1886 invented a note-wheel on the circumference of which they are filed. Professor Wilder lectured at Harvard in 1"868, at the University of Michigan in 1876-'7, at the Lowell institute, Boston, in 1866 and 1870, at the American institute, New York, in 1870-'3, and on the Cartwright foundation before the Alumni association of the College of physicians and surgeons in 1884. He is a member of scientific societies, presided over the section on biology of the American association for the advancement of science in 1885, and was president of the American neurological association in 1885. His bibliography includes nearly 100 technical papers in scientific and medical journals and in the publications of learned societies, also about 80 reviews and articles in magazines. He has published in book-form " What Young People Should Know" (Boston, 1875); "Emergencies: how to Avoid them and how to Meet them " (1879) ; " Health Notes for Students" (1883); and, with Professor Simon H. Gage, "Anatomical Technology as applied to the Domestic Cat " (New York, 1882).