168 INTRODUCTION. 



pursuit of natural science, and especially to the study of natural history. The 

 results of some of his investigations are contained in a letter to doctor Mitchill, 

 published in the " Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society." 



Although the study of ornithology has not been pursued with the especial ob- 

 ject of determining the species of birds indigenous in the state, still in the com- 

 prehensive treatises which have issued from the press, there is no deficiency of 

 information on that interesting subject. The labors of Wilson, Bonaparte, Au- 

 dubon, Cooper and De Kay, in this department, are too well known to require 

 more than a reference on this occasion. 



Similar remarks apply to the history of the mammalia of the state. Although 

 investigations in that department have been made by many distinguished indi- 

 viduals, none have confined their observations to species peculiar to the state, 

 except William Cooper, who has published a treatise of the "Cheiroptera of 

 New- York." Bachman, of South Carolina, in i-esearches extending over most of 

 the states, has made interesting discoveries in the families of many smaller quadru- 

 peds in this State. 



The reptile species, particularly the Tortoise, was described by Le Conte, in 

 the "Annals of the New- York Lyceum," in 1829. His paper contains descrip- 

 tions of seventeen species of tortoises, although only a small number of them be- 

 long exclusively to New- York. 



Barnes, whose early death was deeply lamented, devoted himself to the study 

 of the Unionidse of our lakes and rivers. His descriptions were accurate, and 

 may be considered as the first successful attempt to classify the numerous species 

 of this family of Mollusca. They were published in the " American Journal of 

 Science." For a knowledge of the mollusca of our seacoast, we are indebted 

 to doctor Jay of New- York. Professor Bailey, of West-Point, has also published 

 very interesting results of his researches among the living Infusoria. 



The investigations made in meteorology by our scholars deserve marked 

 acknowledgments. They seem to have begun under an impulse which that 

 science received in 1780, from the Meteorological Society of the Palatinate (in 



