4 Boston Society of Natural History 



It would seem as though it were ordained that an ideal may be 

 brought to realization only through the agony and self-sacrifice of 

 its pioneers. 



To this rule the story of the Boston Society of Natural History 

 forms no exception. Here is an account by one of its original mem- 

 bers of the atmosphere and circumstances through which the So- 

 ciety had to fight its way. 



"At the time of the establishment of the Society, there was not, 

 I believe, in New England, an institution devoted to the study of 

 Natural History. There was not a college in New England, except- 

 ing Yale, where philosophical geology of the modern school was 

 taught. There was not a work extant by a New England author 

 which presumed to group the geological structure of any portion 

 of our territory of greater extent than a county. There was not in 

 existence a bare catalogue, to say nothing of a general history, of 

 the animals of Massachusetts, of any class. There was not within 

 our borders a single museum of Natural History founded accord- 

 ing to the requirements and based upon the system of modern sci- 

 ence, nor a single journal advocating exclusively its interests. 



"We were dependent chiefly upon books and authors foreign to 

 New England for our knowledge of our own Zoology. There was 

 no one among us who had anything like a general knowledge of the 

 birds which fly about us, of the fishes which fill our waters, or of 

 the lower tribes of animals that swarm botli in air and in sea. 



" Some few individuals there were, distinguished by high attain- 

 ments in particular branches and who formed honorable exceptions 

 to the indifference which prevailed, but there was no concentration 

 of opinion or of knowledge, and no means of knowing how much 

 or how little was known. The Laborers in Natural History worked 

 alone without aid or encouragement from others engaged in the same 



