238 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



were enthusiastic naturalists who had studied medicine 

 as a profession, and who went as surgeons to distant 

 positions for the sake of utilizing the opportunities 

 offered there of working up comparatively unknown 

 regions. When the collector was himself a naturalist, he 

 would usually as occasion offered, return to the Smith- 

 sonian to assist in arranging and describing the specimens 

 collected. Sometimes they would be sent to specialists 

 outside the city of Washington, but in the majority of 

 instances they were dealt with in Washington. In those 

 branches of natural history where my father was a special- 

 ist, he took, during this earlier part of his career, a large 

 amount of this work, as his natural history publications 

 fully show. 



"In the letters which I have had copied, and in the 

 extracts from his journal, will be found allusions to the 

 naval expeditions from which he sought and obtained 

 co-operation. Travellers, too, like George P. Marsh in 

 the East and others, sent him what they could collect. 

 Among other names which I find in his journal of those 

 promising to assist, and to whom he gave the apparatus 

 requisite for preserving collections, is that of John Howard 

 Payne, the author of 'Home, Sweet Home.' No source 

 of possible addition to the Museum was left untouched. 

 Correspondents sprang up in Central and South America, 

 some of whom continued to send contributions for many 

 years. 



"With each and all of these individuals he maintained 

 a personal correspondence; and, whenever it was possible 

 for him to render any personal services to these gentle- 

 men, he was anxious and ready to do it as if his indebted- 

 ness to them had been on his own account and not for the 

 sake of his beloved Museum. For any dweller in the 



