300 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1895. 



study. His father was second Vice-President of the Lyceum of 

 Natural History from 1847 to 1851, and first Vice-President from 

 1852 to 1863, and the son was Corresponding Secretary from 1859 

 to 1860 and previously, from 1857 to 1858, Recording Secretary. He 

 notes Dr. Asa Gray, at that time 26 years old, as coming into the 

 Lyceum about 1853. Dr. Torrey was an early friend of W. C. 

 Redfield, so the son knew him before he joined the Lyceum. Though 

 botany was the son's early love, threatened impairment of eye-sight 

 diverted him to couchology. He soon became again warmly in- 

 terested in botany, rising for collecting excursions at four in the 

 morning. 



Passing now to his labors with us, it may be noted that he rarely 

 missed a meeting of the Academy, and was one of the most regular 

 in throwing into the general fund such knowledge as he possessed on 

 the subjects discussed. He may be regarded as the chief founder of 

 the Botanical Section, and he gave freely of his knowledge in most of 

 the discussions before the Section. Reports of many of his verbal 

 communications have been published in the Proceedings of the 

 Academy. 



His first contribution to scientific literature was in 1860, when he 

 described a new shell — a species of Marginella. He furnished the 

 notes on the genus Marginella as described in Reave's Conchologia 

 Icouica and in Tryon's American Journal of Couchology in 1869' 

 and 1870. His nine earlier papers in the Annals of the New York 

 Lyceum, relate wholly to conchological subjects. The "Bulletin 

 of the Torrey Botanical Club" contains a number of articles by 

 him on botanical topics, one of which, " The Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of the Ferns of North America," in the volume for 

 1875, is of standard value, as is also the paper on " Insular Flora" 

 in the volume for 1886. His greatest and last contribution is the 

 " Preliminary Catalogue of the Plants growing on Mt. Desert and 

 adjacent islands," by Edward L. Rand and John H. Redfield, which 

 was issued in 1894. The work, though with characteristic modesty 

 styled a '•preliminary catalogue," ranks among the best of local 

 floras, and will long aid in keeping the name of the associate 

 author fresh in the memory of working botanists. Tributes to his 

 memory from many correspondents all speak of the unselfish good- 

 ness of the man. Our highly veuerated colleague, Dr. Ruschen- 

 berger, who has also recently passed away from us, in a letter 



