BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS. 



SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD.* 



By Robert Ridgway. 



Mr. President and Members of the American Ornitholo- 

 gists' Union: When asked by the worthy president of our uiiiou to 

 j)repare a memorial address upou the life and services to oruitliology 

 of our great teacher and leader, Professor Baird, it was with many mis- 

 givings that the invitation with which I was thus honored was accepted ; 

 for, glad as I am to render what tribute I can to the revered memory 

 of a departed and beloved friend, the sense of my own inability to do 

 justice to such a subject has almost deterred me from the attempt. 



The preparation of an address which shall consist essentially of .new 

 matter is rendered particularly difficult by the circumstance that there 

 has already been published by Prof. G. Brown Goode, in Bulletin 20 of 

 the U. S. National Museum, an excellent biography of Professor Baird, 

 giving in detail a history of the principal events and chief results of his 

 life, together with a complete bibliography of his publications. Since 

 the present memoir is intended to deal more particularly with Professor 

 Baird as an ornithologist, the reader is referred for more general 

 information to Professor Goodc's adnnrable " Biographical Sketch," 

 from which are taken most of the chronological data and the occasional 

 ([uoiations in the following prelude to what I have to oft'er from my 

 own personal knowledge of the life, labors, attainments, and personal 

 qualities of one who in history must hold a place at the head of Ameri- 

 can naturalists, and in the hearts of those who knew him a place which 

 none other can fill. 



Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Feb- 

 ruary 2, 182.'3. In 18.'}4 he was sent to a Quaker boarding school at 

 Port Deposit, Maryland, and the following year to the Reading gram- 

 mar school. In 1837 he entered Dickinson College, graduating in 1840, 

 at the age of seventeen. The next several years were spent in making 



•Read before the Fifth Meetiug of the American Oruithoh)gists' Union. From The 



Auk, January, 1888, vol. v, No. 1. 



70;i 



