EXECUTOR'S FOREWORD 



AT her residence in Philadelphia on June 19, 1913, 

 died Miss Lucy Hunter Baird, the only child of Professor 

 Spencer Fullerton Baird, the second Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution of Washington and the organizer 

 and first Commissioner of the United States Commission 

 of Fish and Fisheries, who died at the biological station 

 of the Commission at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts, on 

 August 19, 1887. 



It had been the wish of Miss Baird, who had been 

 the close and constant companion and confidant of her 

 father from early childhood to the time of his death, to 

 personally prepare his biography. This was delayed, 

 first, by the confirmed illness of her mother, to whose 

 care and comfort was given all her time and effort till 

 the death of Mrs. Baird, on December 23, 1891; and, 

 secondly, by the state of her own health, which prevented 

 the continuous application needed to bring the contem- 

 plated memoir to completion. In the interval, however, 

 she had brought together and partially arranged many 

 data relating to her father's life. Fearing that she would 

 be unable to complete the memoir she devised all her 

 own and her father's papers to the executor of her will 

 with the request "to see that this memoir be completed 

 by a suitable and competent person." Having during 

 the last ten years or more of Professor Baird's life been 

 one of his assistants, both in the Smithsonian Institution 

 and the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, 

 and the recipient of many kindnesses from himself and 

 family and of frequent hospitalities at their home, and 



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