PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 87 



ding that according to his belief not many that are of any con- 

 siderable bigness in the known regions of the world have escaped 

 the cognizance of the curious. 



Linnaeus in his 12th edition (1766) described 210 species of 

 beasts or mammals, and 124 of reptiles so called. Of the mam- 

 mals known to Linnaeus, 78, or more than one-third, were Ameri- 

 can, and 88 of the reptiles were attributed to this continent. 



" The number of birds," said Ray, " may be near 500." 

 Linnaeus catalogued 790, of which about one-third were American. 



Although at this time the Middle and Southern States were the 

 most active in the prosecution of scientific researches, there were 

 in New England at least two diligent students of nature. Paul 

 Dudley, F. R. S., [b. 1675], chief-justice of the colony of Massa- 

 chusetts, was the author of several papers in the Philosophical 

 Transactions. Among these were " A Description of the Moose 

 Deer in America," * " An Account of a Method Lately Found 

 Out in New England for Discovering Where the Bees Hive in 

 the Woods,"** " An Account of the Rattlesnake,"! and " An 

 Essay Upon the Natural History of Whales, with a Particular 

 Account of the Ambergris Found in the Spermaceti Whale," J 

 which is often quoted. 



Others were an "Account of the Poison Wood Tree in New 

 England," § and " Observations on Some Plants of New Eng- 

 land, with Remarkable Instances of the Nature and Power of 

 Vegetation." || He also appears to have sent to Collinson a 

 treatise upon the evergreens of New England.^ 



The Rev. Jared Eliot, [b. 1685, d. 1763], minister at Killing- 

 worth, in Connecticut, and one of the earliest graduates of Yale 

 College, described by his contemporaries as " the first physician 

 of his day," and as " the first botanist in New England," appears 



*Phil. Trans., xxxi, 1721. J Phil. Trans., xxxiii, 1725, pp. 256-69. 



**Phil. Trans., xxxi, 1721, p. 148-50. § Phil. Trans., xxi, p. 135. 



fPhil. Trans., xxxii, p. 292-5. || Phil. Trans., xxxiii, p. 129. 



^fSee Tuckerman in Arch&ologia Americana, iv, pp. 125-6. 



