246 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



'ITie Society has also lost by death three of its Foreign Members. 



Richard Harlan, M.D., was of Quaker parentage and born in the 

 city of Philadelphia about the year 1795. He studied medicine under 

 Dr. Joseph Parrish, one of the surgeons of the Pennsylvania Hospital, 

 whose anatomical assistant he became, dissecting extensively him- 

 self and directing the dissections of the younger pupils. In 1 817, at 

 which time he was settled in practice, he had already commenced 

 the study of comparative anatomy with zeal and success ; and there 

 is reason to believe that his devotion to natural history interfered 

 greatly with the brilliant prospect that was opened to him as a me- 

 dical practitioner. But he had made his choice, and was quite pre- 

 pared to sacrifice fortune and professional eminence to his favourite 

 pursuit. As early as 1819 he delivered a course of lectures on Com- 

 parative Anatomy at the Philadelphia Museum (Peale's), where he 

 had amassed a considerable stock of materials for demonstration, but 

 the attendance was small, and he gave up lecturing in disappoint- 

 ment. 



About this period the return of MacLure to the United States, 

 accompanied by Lesueur, gave a new stimulus to the cultivation of 

 natural history, and the complete establishment of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia under the Presidency of MacLure 

 brought together the most distinguished names in the science that 

 America had produced. Among Dr. Harlan's claims to remembrance, 

 not the least are derived from his zeal in the early constitution of 

 this Society, and from his example of sedulous devotion to its pur- 

 suits. To the pages of its Journal he contributed numerous valu- 

 able papers. 



In 1825 he published his ' Fauna Americana ; being a Description of 

 the Mammiferous Animals inhabiting North America,' a work partly 

 compiled from Desmarest's ' Mammalogie ' and from other less- 

 known publications, but containing in addition much useful original 

 matter. 



In 1832, when the Asiatic cholera made its first appearance at 

 Quebec and Montreal, considerable apprehension was excited in the 

 public mind, and Dr. Harlan was appointed by the City Councils of 

 Philadelphia one of a Commission of three, consisting of himself, Dr. 

 Jackson and Dr. Meigs, to proceed to Canada, " to inquire into the 

 origin, nature, progress, &c. of the prevailing epidemic." After making 

 extensive inquiries, the Commission returned to Philadelphia with 

 such a mass of information on the subject as enabled them to give to 

 the people of that city ample warning of the nature of the premonitory 

 symptoms and of the precautions to be adopted, and thereby greatly 



