Kovalevsky

Kovalevsky, ALEXANDER, embryologist, was born 19th November 1840, and became professor at St Petersburg. He is known for his researches on the embryology of invertebrates which led to Haeckel's Gastraea theory; for his discovery of the life-history and true position of the Ascidians; and for investigations of the development of the Amphioxus, Balanoglossus, Sagitta, and Brachiopods. See ASCIDIANS, EMBRYOLOGY.—His brother, WOLDEMAR (1843-83), professor of Palaeontology at Moscow, became bankrupt, and died by his own hand.—Woldemar's wife, SONJA or SOPHIE (1850-91), daughter of a Moscow artillery officer, made a brilliant name for herself throughout Europe as a mathematician, was professor of Mathematics at Stockholm, and left a brilliant series of novels, of which Vera Barantzova was translated in 1895. See Leffler's monograph on her (trans. 1895).