INTRODUCTION. 
A sHorT account of the events that led to the publication of the ‘ Biologia Centrali- 
_ Americana’ may be of interest to our readers, and I will therefore first give a sketch 
of the early days of Salvin and myself, so far as they have a definite bearing on the 
study-of Natural History, and of the circumstances which drew our attention especially 
to Tropical America. 
Osbert, the second son of Mr. Anthony Salvin, the eminent architect, was born at 
Finchley in 1835 and educated at Westminster and Cambridge. That he developed 
a very early taste for natural history is clear from the series of bird skins, now in 
the Natural History Museum, collected by him as a boy and labelled ‘ Finchley.’ 
I, Frederick DuCane Godman, third son of Joseph Godman, of Park Hatch, Surrey, 
was born in January 1834, and at the age of ten went to Eton, but three years later 
a very severe attack of what was then called low fever necessitated my removal, 
and for some years I was unable to work at all. When my health was sufficiently 
re-established, I received instruction from tutors until I was eighteen years old, when 
I made a trip to the Mediterranean and Black Sea, visiting Gibraltar, Southern Spain, 
Athens, and Constantinople en route. During the time spent at home I interested 
myself in Natural History, paying special attention to the British Mosses and Ferns, 
of which I made a considerable ccllection. Birds were always a source of delight 
to me, and I could recognise a large number of British species as well by their flight 
as by their note. | 
In 1853 I entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as an undergraduate, and Salvin, in 
the following year, went to ‘Trinity Hall, of which College he became a scholar; he 
graduated as a Senior Optime in the Mathematical Tripos and was afterwards made 
an Honorary Fellow. With similar tastes, it was only natural that we soon met 
and became fast friends, thus forming that close intimacy which only terminated 
with Salvin’s death on June Ist, 1898. Salvin was a skilful mechanic, and very 
ingenious in carpentry and cabinet making. Whilst still at Westminster, with the 
assistance of his elder brother, he built a boat thirty feet long and fitted it with 
a steam engine, the whole of which, with the exception of the boiler, was made 
by the two brothers. This boat was launched on the river, and in it they went to 
a Thames regatta, but, having tested its powers and proved its capability, their object 
BIOL, VENTR.-AMER., Introd. Vol., January 1915. B 
