PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 93 



" notable," says Coues, " as the first formal treatise exclusively 

 devoted to a collection of North American birds sent abroad." 

 Fifty-eight species were described, among which were several new 

 to science. Other papers of equal value were published upon 

 the quadrupeds and fishes of the same region. Forster was one 

 of the earliest students of the geographical distribution of animals, 

 and his "Enchiridion of Natural History " was in its day a 

 standard. His son, John George Forster, who was his companion 

 in the voyage of circumnavigation, owes his fame to his literary 

 rather than to his scientific labors. He published a paper on the 

 Patella or Trumpet Fish found at Bermuda.* 



The annals of Russian explorations upon the west coast of 

 North America have been so exhaustively recorded by Dall in his 

 u Alaska and its Resources," that only passing mention need be 

 made of the two German naturalists, Steller and Chamisso, whose 

 names are identified with the natural history work of the Russian 

 explorer. 



Among the other naturalists whose names are associated with 

 America during this period may be mentioned Sonnini de Manon- 

 court, an eminent French zoologist, who travelled in Surinam 

 from 1 77 1 *-° ! 775 an d made important contributions to its ornith- 

 ology. Don Felix deAz'ara, [b. 1746, d. after 1806], who carried 

 on researches in Spanish America from 1781 to 1801 ; Don An- 

 tonio Parra, who published a useful treatise on the natural history 

 of Cuba in Havana, in 17S7 ; Don Jose C. Mutis, a learned Span- 

 ish ecclesiastic and physician, professor of natural history in the 

 University of Santa Fe de Bogota, in Grenada, who carried on a 

 voluminous correspondence with Linnaeus and his son from 1763 

 to 1778,1 and Joseph Jussieu, botanist to the King of France, who 

 went to the west coast of South America in 1734 as a member of 

 the commission sent by the Royal Academy of Sciences to make 

 observations to determine more accurately the shape and magni- 



. * . 



*Phil. Trans., 1, p. 859. 



f Smith : Correspondence of L,tnn(P?ta, ii, pp. 507-550. 



