EWAN: SAN FRANCISCO AS A MECCA FOR NINETEENTH CENTURY NATURALISTS 31 



The Russian diplomat, Carl Robert Osten Sackcn, visited California first in 

 1875-1876 as a private citizen interested in collecting Diptera. Previous to this 

 he had served as Secretary of the Russian Legation and Consul General of Russia 

 in New York City. 



In many ways he constituted the beau ideal of a scientific entomologist: absolute 

 master of numerous languages, independence of means, social rank, retentive memory, 

 accurate observation, possessor of an almost perfect library of works upon Dipterology, 

 and polished manners — these qualities all combined enabled him to hold the highest 

 rank in his special branch of science. 



LjTuan Belding, "the Nestor of California ornithologists," knew the passenger 

 pigeon in Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley, and after he came to Stockton in 1854 

 the elk of the tule marshes and beaver and otter about the valley town were 

 familiar sights to him. In 1862 Belding moved to Marysville, but it was not until 

 the publication of Cooper's OrnitJioIogy of California in 1876 that his interest 

 took a serious turn. He was no doubt encouraged by S. F. Baird and Robert 

 Ridgway, who guided his collecting energies. They suggested that Belding make 

 a trip to Guadalupe Island in the spring of 1881, but this was abandoned in favor 

 of a visit to Cedros Island. Belding made several trips to Lower California; he 

 made especially notable collections about Cape San Jose del Cabo, where, to his 

 wonderment, Xantus had missed certain common birds. But the high Sierras of 

 central California drew his closest scrutiny, for neither Heermann, Gambel, nor 

 Xantus explored them and Bell may well not have reached much above the foot- 

 hills. Belding's 274-page account of Birds of the Pacific District was published 

 in 1890 by the Academy. He sent several papers to the West American Scien- 

 tist and to Zoe. 



The lepidopterist, William Greenwood Wright, author of the Butterflies of 

 the West Coast (San Francisco, 1905) — a rare book because of the destruction 

 of the warehouse stocks in the fire of 1906 — v^as a well-known figure about the 

 Academy. Henry Edwards, Dr. Behr, R. H. Stretch, and others at the Academy, 

 as well as Dr. Parry, who botanized in Wright's territory about San Bernardino, 

 were all his friends. He was a largel}^ self-educated man, who came to California 

 shortly after the Civil War. For twenty years he operated a planing mill at San 

 Bernardino, devoting his leisure to collecting insects, especially butterflies, and 

 plants. George II. Horn characterized Wright as "a zealous botanist, for whom 

 neither the privations incident to an exploration of the Mojave Desert nor the 

 jealous watchfulness of the Indians, seemed to have held any terrors." In June, 

 1888, he botanized in the Greenhorn Mountains; in January, 1889, about the 

 Mexican port of San Bias; at Sitka, Alaska, in July, 1891; and in Mendocino 

 County, in May, 1894. His later years were passed at San Bernardino, where he 

 was a familiar figure because of his natural history interests and his fondness 

 for instructing children in the subject, and there he died in 1912, at the age of 

 eighty-three. 



Charles Christopher Parry is well known as a botanical explorer of Colorado, 

 and before that as a member ol; the ^lexican Boundary Survey, but he also made 

 several botanical visits to California. Sargent has remarked on the zeal, industry, 

 and intelligence with which he botanized for a period of more than forty-eight 

 years in the West. The winter of 1880-1881 Dr. Parry spent in and around San 

 Francisco, with nominal headquarters at the Academy. Returning in the spring 



