122 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHHSTGTOlSr. 



American Journal of Conchology, vol. i, part 4, 1865.* This 

 picture, thouj^h well executed, wants the winning expression 

 which was characteristic of his face. 



Amos Binney. 



The first to project and illustrate in the highest style of the art 

 a work on the Helicidae of the United States, doing for the land- 

 shells what Haldeman had attempted for the fresh-water gastro- 

 pods, was Amos Binney, of Boston, born October 18, 1803, who 

 died at Rome, Italy, February iS, 1847, leaving his work still 

 incomplete. He graduated at Brown University in 1S21, and in 

 medicine at Harvard in 1836, but his health proving precarious 

 he devoted himself to commercial pursuits with remarkable suc- 

 cess, reserving his leisure for science and art, of which he was 

 passionately fond. He was one of the founders and a liberal 

 giver to the Boston Society of Natural History, which elected 

 him its president from 1S43 until his death. He was active in 

 establishing the American Association of Naturalists and Geolo- 

 gists, which has since developed into the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. 



As a member of the Massachusetts General Courtf he was 

 instrumental in securing the organization of the zoological and 

 botanical commissions to which we owe the classical Massachu- 

 setts Reports by Harris, Emerson, Storer, and Gould. 



At his death his work on the Terrestrial Moll'usks of the United 

 States was unfinished, but he provided in his will for its comple- 

 tion, a work for which his executors designated his friend and 

 townsman. Dr. Gould, as editor. This work -is unsurpassed in 

 elegance of execution by any similar publication to the present 



* A brief notice of Dr. Gould's life appeared in those copies of the second 

 edition of tlie " Invertebrata " which were distributed by his family. 

 There is a notice by Dr. Jacob Bigelow in tlie transactions of the Suffolk 

 County Medical Society in 1S66. 



t So the legislature is styled in that State. 



