REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 77 



rROFESSOR BAIRD. 



I have referred, at the begiuning of this report, to the death of the late 

 Secretary. Both the greatuess of the loss to science aud to this Iiisti- 

 tutiou iiiake me feel the ueed of speaking agaiu aud more particularly 

 both of him aud of his work. 



Wheu, in Jauuary, 1887, the Secretary asked of your honorable body 

 authority to appoiut two assistant secretaries to relieve him from the 

 growing burden of his otticial occupations, it was doubtless with the 

 consciousness that his failing strength no longer permitted the contin- 

 uous attention to his varied duties which he had previously, with ready 

 zeal, bestowed. When, under the imperative orders of his physician, he 

 ■withdrew himself (as much as his active mental interest permitted) 

 from the executive oi)erations of his position, the comparative relaxa- 

 tion of effort and responsibility seemed to have been accepted too late 

 to give him its expected relief and recui)eration ; and his exhausted 

 jiowers continued to decline until he quietly breathed his last, on the 

 afternoon of the IDth of August, 1887, at the headquarters of the U. S. 

 Commission of Fisheries, at Wood's Holl. 



In recognition of his distinguished services, a bill was introduced in 

 the Senate of the United States, and passed by that body February 10, 

 1888, making an appropriation for the erection of a bronze statue to 

 commemorate his merits. 



A bill was also introduced in the Senate for the benefit of his widow. 



At a specml meeting of the Board of Regents, held November 18, 

 1887, the following resolutions were passed : 



Whereas, in the dispensation of Divine Providence, the mortal life 

 of Spencer Fullerton Baird was ended on the lUth of August last, the 

 Ilegents of the Smithsonian Institution, now at the earliest practicable 

 moment assembled, desire to express and to record their i)rofound sense 

 of the great loss which this Institution has thereby sustained, and 

 which they personally have sustained. And they accordingly resolve : 



1. That, in the lamented death of Professor Baird, the Institution is 

 bereaved of its honored and eliicient Secretary, \vho lias faithfully and 

 unremittingly devoted to its service his rare administrative abilities for 

 thirty-seven years — that is, almost from the actual foundation of tiie 

 establishment — for the last nine years as its chief executive othcer, under 

 whose sagacious management it has }i;reatly i)rospered and widely ex- 

 tended its usefulness and its renown. 



2. That the JS'ational Museum, of which this Institution is the ad- 

 ministrator, and the Fisli Commission, which is practically affiliated to 

 it, both organized and in a just sense created by our late Secretary, are 

 by this bereavement deprived of the invaluable and unpaid services of 

 their indefatigable otticial head. 



3. That the cultivators of science, both in this country and abroad, 

 have to deplore the loss of a veteran and distinguished naturalist, wlio 

 was from early years a sedulous and succes.stul investigator ; whose 

 native gifts and whose ex[)erien(',e in systematic biological work served 

 in no small degree to adapt him to the administrative duties which 

 filled the later years of his life, but whose knowledge and whose inter- 

 est ip science widened aud deejjeued as the opportunities for special 



