732 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS. 



restricted to the impress left upon zoologiciil scMence by Baird's original 

 investigations. So great has been his rei)utation as an organizer, so 

 numerous have been the publications in which he has garnered for the 

 public the precious grain of the annual scientific harvest, that the extent 

 and ijijportance of his original work, except by specialists, is in danger 

 of being overlooked. 



We owe an excellent bibliography of his publications to Professor 

 Goode. From this we learn that, up to the end of 1882, the list com- 

 prises nearly eleven hundred titles, from which, after deduction of all 

 notices, reviews, official reports, and works edited for others, some two 

 hundred formal contributions to scientific literature remain, many of 

 which are works of monographic character and extensive scope. 



With the exception of a single early botanical paper these relate to 

 the vertebrates of America and, in their several branches, cover nearly 

 the entire field. Although descriptions of species in themselves afford 

 a poor criterion of the value of the work containing them, it is inter- 

 esting to note that, among the terrestrial vertebrates, the proportion of 

 the fauna first made known by Baird to the total number recognized at 

 the time as North American varied from twenty-two iier 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 bookishness. In the case of the collections from Hudson Bay or the 

 Pacific Railroad Surveys, when birds, mammals, or reptiles sometimes 

 came to hand by hundreds, each specimen having the collector's data 

 attached, the whole collection was thrown together, each form to be 

 sorted out on its merits and studied in the light of a multitude of spec- 

 imens. 



Professor Baird's early life had included so much of exercise in the 

 shape of long pedestrian journeys with gun and gamebag, 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 exhaustive research into all which concerned the subject of 

 his study, and a wonderful inventiveness in labor-saving devices for 

 labeling, museum work, and registration. 



He had a wonderful capacity for work. He undertook and carried 

 out successfully tasks which it would seem nobody else would have 

 dared to attempt, or, attempting, would have been physically unable to 

 complete. In the case of the immense volume on the mammals, of the 

 Pacific Railroad Surveys, he says in the preface, July 20, 1857: 



The examination of the material was actually commenced early in 

 1855 and many of the articles written in that year or 1856. With the 

 continual accession of additional specimens it became finally necessary 

 to rewrite, alter, or extend all that had been prepared prior to the 

 present year (1857). It is to this that the frequent want of uniformity 

 is due, the time allowed not being sufficient in many cases to permit the 

 reworking of the whole matter. - - - It is, perhaps, unnecessary 

 to state that the matter of the present report is entirely original through- 



