98 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



Of the Stimpsonian period I can only refer to Bland, whose 

 place is here rather than with Gould ; and lastly, Stimpson himself. 



Thomas Say. 



Thomas Say was born at Philadelphia, of Qiiaker ancestry, 

 July 27, 17^7* -^^^ father, as was usual in those days, united to 

 the profession of a physician the duties of an apothecary. Young 

 Say received a very rudimentary education in one of the Qiiaker 

 schools and at the " Friends' Academy " at Weston, a few miles 

 from Philadelphia. At a later time he studied pharmacy under 

 his father's supervision, and was established in that business with 

 another person whose steady habits it was supposed would ensure 

 success. Among his acquaintance Say's name was always 

 associated with honor and veracity. Conscious of rectitude him- 

 self, ingenuous and sincere, he took for granted that others were 

 so, and, as is too often the case, he fell a victim to his trust in 

 others. Having endorsed the business paper of ostensible friends, 

 through their failure he was involved in financial ruin. His heart 

 was not in business, he attended to it with indifference, and, from 

 his school days, was drawn irresistibly toward a study of animated 

 nature. Maich 21, 181 2, he became a member of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences, then in the process of transformation from 

 a social club to an association of naturalists. The president, 

 William Maclure, seems to have been a warm and intimate friend 

 of Say, and assisted him pecuniarily, for he became the first 

 curator of the embryo museum and lived on its premises for sev- 

 eral years, part of the time subsisting on such frugal fare as might 

 be obtained for twelve cents a day ! His time was devoted to 

 study and his reputation as a naturalist was already somewhat 

 spread, for he was selected by the publishers to furnish several 

 articles on American Natural History to the American edition of 

 Nicholson's British Encyclopedia, a work which rapidly reached 

 its third edition. In the winter of 181 6-1 7 appeared the second 



