506 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1897. 



Cassin had the western room of the library filled with trays of 

 mounted birds and scores of ornithological volumes which no one 

 about the place dared to touch, for Cassin was very much of an 

 autocrat and was impatient of rules. Books and specimens, how- 

 ever, were made good use of, especially on Sundays, for the 

 exigencies of bread-winning left him but little time during the 

 week for his favorite study. 



S. B. Buckley occupied the herbarium, a long, narrow, dark room 

 in the southeast corner of the second museum floor. He had pre- 

 sented and published some interesting observations on ant-life, and 

 was then working up his collection of Texan plants, the publication 

 of his results calling forth savage criticism from Asa Gray, which 

 created quite a stir at the time and gave poor Elias Durand, the 

 Director of the Herbarium, more than one bad quarter of an hour. 



The President, Isaac Lea, was reading by title his contributions 

 to the genus Unio and other conchological papers, synopses of which 

 were published in the Proceedings, to be afterward expanded into 

 parts of the Journal, sumptuously illustrated at the expense of the 

 author by some of the finest lithographs ever made in America. 



The place left vacant in 1850 by Samuel George Morton had been 

 filled by James Aitken Meigs, who, after serving a brief term as 

 Librarian, was devoting all the time he could sjiare from a rapidly 

 growing practice to the study of anthropology. Thirty years later 

 the Academy came into possession of the library he was then col- 

 lecting and a portion of the fortune resulting from his successful 

 professional work. 



The sound of the fierce battle between Lea and Conrad had died 

 away to a distant reverberation, and the latter, as efficiently as his 

 dyspepsia would allow, was describing fossil mollusca and making 

 autograph drawings on stone of his new species. His activity was 

 greatly stimulated by the facilities for publication supplied by the 

 newly started American Journal of Conchology, and by the interest 

 in his work displayed by the editor, George W. Tryon, Jr. 



Thomas B. Wilson had just presented the superb collections of 

 birds which for many years were, and perhaps still are, the crown- 

 ing glory of the Academy. They had been deposited from time to 

 time since 1845, and Wilson had even made an addition to the 

 Academy's building for their arrangement, but they only became 

 the absolute property of the society in March, 1860. 



We find the Curators at this time complaining that in spite of 

 Wilson's addition the building was rapidly becoming too small for the 



