Faussek

FAUSSEK Viktor Andreyevich (1861-1910), zoologist, professor (from 1906 and director) of the Higher Women's Courses and the Women's Medical Institute in St. Petersburg. F. worked at biological stations—the White Sea, Murmansk, and in Naples, leaving vivid sketches of their nature and working conditions there (in 'Vestnik Evropy'). In embryological works, F. defends the idea of the body cavity as a reservoir in which the products of the embryo's excretion accumulate. In his work on the parasitism of the larvae of the freshwater mussel ('Parasitism of Anodonta larvae', Notes of the Academy of Sciences, vol. XIII, no. 6, 1903) and in the sketch on viviparity and parasitism, F. expresses the thought that viviparity is parasitism of the embryo in the maternal organism. In biological sketches of the Transcaspian Desert ('Biological researches in the Transcaspian region', Notes of the Russian Geographical Society, vol. XXVII, 1906), he, besides interesting observations on the adaptation of animals to life on sand, develops the theory on the significance of threat movements and threatening coloration in animals. Despite the paradoxicalness and teleological nature of some of F.'s constructions, his excellent language, freshness of thought, and interesting observations make his works very valuable.