552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



labor the existence of a whole generation of ichthyologists, breed- 

 ers of fishes, and inventors of appliances of all sorts for use in 

 connection with the taking, preservation, and increase of these 

 animals. . . . Whether germane to the subject of scientific re- 

 search or not, the most narrow specialist can hardly judge an 

 allusion to the grandeur of the methods by which the food-supply 

 of a nation was provided, hundreds of rivers stocked with fish, 

 and the very depths of the ocean were repopulated. ... In a few 

 years we may fairly expect to see the food-supply of the entire 

 civilized world materially increased, with all the benefits which 

 that imi)lies, and this result will in the main be owing to the un- 

 remunerated and devoted exertions of Spencer F. Baird." 



As estimated by Mr. Dall, the proportion of the vertebrate 

 fauna first made known by Baird to the total number recognized 

 at the time as North American, varied from twenty-two per cent 

 of the whole to forty per cent in different groups. His method of 

 study of new material was as far removed as possible from book- 

 ishness. Prof. Baird's early life, Mr. Dall adds, " had included so 

 much of exercise in the shape of long pedestrian journeys with 

 gun and game-bag, so much familiarity with the wood-life of his 

 favorite birds and mammals, that it would have been in any case 

 impossible to class him with the closet-naturalist ; while to this 

 knowledge he added a genius for thorough, patient, and exhaust- 

 ive research into all which concerned the subject of his study, 

 and a wonderful inventiveness in labor-saving devices for label- 

 ing, museum-work, and registration. He had a wonderful capacity 

 for work." These qualities, and others consonant with them, en- 

 abled him to draw conclusions which subsequent accumulations 

 of material have verified in a surprising manner. 



Prof. Baird was a man of great literary activity. The number 

 of his works and contributions down to the end of 1882, recorded 

 in Prof. G. Brown Goode's " Bibliography/' is 1,063, of which, 

 however, 775 are brief notices and critical reviews contributed to 

 " The Annual Record of Science and Industry," 31 reports relat- 

 ing to the work of the Smithsonian Institution, 7 reports upon 

 the American fisheries, 25 schedules and circulars officially issued, 

 and 25 are volumes or papers edited ; but many of these papers 

 also contain important original matter. Of the remaining 200 

 papers, the majority are formal contributions to scientific litera- 

 ture. Some 20 or more of the papers were prepared conjointly 

 with some other author— his brother, William M. Baird, Charles 

 Girard, Messrs. Cassin and Lawrence, or Messrs. Brewer and 

 Pidgway. Of all the papers, 73 relate to mammals, 80 to birds, 

 43 to reptiles, 431 to fishes, 61 to invertebrates, 16 to plants, 88 to 

 geographical distribution, 46 to geology, mineralogy, and paleon- 

 tology, 45 to anthropology, 31 to industry and art, and 109 to ex- 



