SPENCER F. BAIRD. 705 



Although his eUler brother had anticipated hiui by a few years iu be- 

 ginning the formation of a collection, he soon " diverged into other 

 paths," and became a lawyer in Reading, Pennsylvania,* leaving to 

 him the field of ornithology, which he cultivated so assiduously that 

 when the catalogue of liis collection t was closed, at number 3696, al- 

 most every species of bird occurring, regularly or otherwise, in eastern 

 and central Pennsylvania was represented, and in most cases by series 

 of specimens showing the different stages and phases of plumage. This 

 collection, deposited there by Professor Baird when he entered upon his 

 duties as Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, is still iu 

 the National Museum, of whose ornithological treasures it forms an im- 

 portant element, so many of its specimens having served as the types 

 of Professor Baird's descriptions iu his " Birds of North America " and 

 subsequent works. In it are " specimens of birds prepared by these 

 boys forty-five [now nearly fifty] years ago by a simple process of 

 evisceration, followed by stufiSng the body-cavities full of cotton and 

 arsenical soap" — a method probably adopted by them before they had 

 learned the art of skinning birds. 



Although his collection was made at a time when'the art of taxider - v 

 is generally supposed to have been far behind its present status, espe- 

 ciall3' so far as this country is concerned, the excellent preparation of 

 the specimens, their very precise labelling and perfect preserv^ation, 

 show Professor Baird to have been in every respect the peer of any 

 ornithological collector of the present i^eriod. Exposed for more than 

 thirty years to constant handling and everything that could effect their 

 deterioration, they are still in a most excellent state of perservation, 

 and none have lost their labels. I have never known a specimen of 

 Professor Baird's preparation to be attacked by insects, a statement 

 which I am able to make regarding few other collections of which I 

 possess the knowledge to speak. The force of these observations may 

 be better appreciated when it is considered that probably no other 

 collection of skins has ever received so much handling as that made by 

 Professor Baird, every standard work on North American birds pub- 

 lished since 1850 having been based essentially upon it, so far as eastern 

 species are concerned. Not only are the specimens prepared and pre- 

 served in a manner equalled by only the best of our living collectors, 

 but their labels are fastened with unusual security, and contain very 

 precise data, including scientific name (with authority), sex, age, 

 locality, and date ; and usually, on the reverse side, the total length 

 and stretch of wings, measured before skinning. 



The formation of so large and varied a collection of course in- 



* Mr. Goode informs us that " at the time of his death, in 1872," he "waa United 

 States, collector of internal revenue at Reading." 



t This catalogue constitutes Volume I of the scries of National Museum " Register 

 of Specimens," now tilling twenty-one volumes, and containing more than 112,000 sep- 

 arate entries. 



H. Mis. 142 45 



