LINITEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 83 



affinities of the members of the Phanerogamous division of the 

 Vegetable Kingdom. 



" And now, witli all these labours past and honours gained, 

 instead of seeking a well-earned rest, we find you enthusiastically 

 investigating the vegetation of our great Indian Empire, and 

 presenting to us part after part of the ' Flora of British India,' 

 now happily neariug completion. 



" It is to me a special satisfaction that it has fallen to my lot 

 to deliver to you, on behalf of the Linnean Society, this recog- 

 nition — the highest they can bestow — of your life-long services 

 to Botany." 



Sir Joseph Hooker made a brief reply, embodying his cordial 

 gratification on the receipt of the Medal. 



The Medallists having severally received their Medals, the 

 Senior Secretary laid the following Obituary Notices before the 

 Meeting : — 



Spenceb Fulleeton Baiud was boi'u at Reading, Pennsylvania, 

 on February 2, 1823 ; his father, Mr, Samuel Baird, being a lawyer 

 whose family came from Scotland in the seventeenth century. 

 Young Baird was first sent to a Quaker school in Maryland, 

 afterwards to the Reading GraDimar School, and went from there 

 to Dickinson College, where he graduated in 1810 at the age of 

 seventeen. His taste for science, which had made him an ardent 

 collector and observer of birds, had already shaped the course of 

 his future career. After devoting several years to the study of 

 natural history and medicine, he was elected in 1845 Professor of 

 Natural History in Dickinson College, to which post the duties 

 and emoluments of the Chair of Chemistry in the same institution 

 were added in the following year. In 1850 he accepted the 

 position of Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 and maintained his connection with that great undertaking until 

 his death. 



In 1838 Prof. Baird became acquainted with Audubon, who, in 

 1842, gave him the greater part of his collection of birds, including 

 most of his types of new species. From this time onward Baird 

 worked assiduovisly both in the closet and the field ; and in 1858, 

 aided by Cassin and Lawrence, published his first great mono- 

 graph on the ' Birds of North America,' by which his reputation 

 as an ornithologist was established. This was followed by the 

 ' Review of American Birds ' in 1864-66 ; by the ' Ornithology 

 of California' (edited by Baird) ; and by the ' History of North- 

 American Birds,' in conjunction with Robert Ridgway and T. M. 

 Brewer, in 1874. His separate ornithological publications, nearly 

 eighty in number, are important contributions to the systematic 

 literature of the subject and models of careful and accurate 

 research. 



9'^ 



