412 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



Mexico aud Central America, and eventually over the wliole 

 of the New World. Only a few years ago the collection thus 

 amassed during fifty years' work, numbering about 8000 

 specimens, and containing about 300 types of new species, 

 was deposited in the American Museum of Natural History 

 at New York, 



Lawrence published his first paper on birds in 1844-, and 

 continued a series of notes and memoirs in the * Annals of 

 the Lyceum of Natural History of New York,^ the ' Pro- 

 ceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,' 

 the ' Proceedings of the United States National Museum,' 

 and other periodicals for nearly 50 years. His various 

 writings, of which a complete account has been published in 

 no. 40 of the ' Bulletin of the United States National 

 Museum,'' are 121 in number. In 1858 he was associated 

 with Baird and Cassin in Baird's great work on ' The Birds 

 of North America.' Another important piece of work per- 

 formed by Lawrence was his Catalogue of the collection of 

 birds made by McLeannan on the Panama Railway, of 

 which the first portion was published in 1862. At that time 

 Panama was almost a terra incognita for naturalists, and 

 Lawrence's memoir excited great interest all over the orni- 

 thological world. 



So long ago as December 1856 the writer of this notice had 

 the pleasure of making Lawrence's acquaintance, having pre- 

 viously known him by correspondence. He well recollects 

 several most interesting evenings passed in Lawrence's 

 company in an underground apartment at the Naturalist's 

 dwelling in New York city, where the collection of birds was 

 at that time kept. After that date Lawrence and the writer 

 maintained a constant correspondence upon bird-topics, and 

 met again at New York in 1884. An excellent notice of 

 Lawrence and his work will be found in ' Science' for March 

 8th of the present year, from the pen of Dr. C. Hart Merriain, 

 and a biographical sketch of him by Mr. Foster forms a 

 preface to the bibliography of which we have already spoken. 

 —P. L. S. 



