PREFACE 



XI 



collected with great care by Mr. Herbert A. Gill, long 

 associated with the Fish Commission work under Pro- 

 fessor Baird. 



In the preparation of the Biography the author has 

 not attempted to enumerate or analyze Professor Baird's 

 publications, which are already made accessible by 

 Goode's exhaustive bibliography. Their relation to 

 Science is indicated by the quotations cited from experts 

 in Chapter XII, and the limit of space assigned to this 

 volume forbade anything more extended. For the same 

 reason reference to the pupils and subordinates by whose 

 earnestness and ability much of Baird's work was facili- 

 tated has been necessarily restricted to a minimum. 

 No one would have acknowledged their merits more 

 generously than he. 



The intimate history of the negotiations by which he 

 promoted the scientific activity of Government agencies 

 is naturally not on record, though to some extent 

 traditionally known. 



The chief aim of the biographer has been to show the 

 man as he lived and worked; with glimpses of his relations 

 to his contemporaries, to the promotion of science, and 

 to great, and as yet hardly appreciated, public services. 



It is proper to say that from 1869 to the date of 

 Professor Baird's death, much of what is here recorded 

 was known to the present biographer at the time of its 

 occurrence. 



The biographer is under obligations to Judge Edward 

 W. Biddle of Carlisle, to the officers of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, especially Dr. Richard Rathbun; to the 

 Commissioner of the United States Bureau of Fisheries; 

 and to the authorities of Dickinson College; to Miss Caro- 

 line R. D. Baird, Miss Christine W. Biddle, Miss Harriet 



