Bro-ijun'nos of Natural History i)i America. 375 



setts in 1631. The Rev. Al)raliani Peirson, one of the founders of the 

 eolony at Newark, during his residence in New Hni^land made valuable 

 investigations upon the language of the Ouiripi or Quinnipiae Indians of 

 the Xew Haven colony. The extensive bibliography of which Mr. 

 Pilling has recently pul^lished advance sheets gives an excellent idea of 

 the attention which American lingui.stics have since received. 



That very eminent colonial statesman, John Winthrop the younger, 

 the finst governor of Connecticut [b. 1587, d. 1649], stood high in the 

 esteem of I^nglish men of science, and was invited by the newly founded 

 Royal vSociety, of which he was a fellow, "to take upon him.self the 

 charge of being the chief correspondent in the West, as Sir Philiberto 

 Vernatti was in the East Indies." The secretary of the Royal Society 

 said of him: " His name, had he put it to his writings, would have l)een 

 as universally known as the Boyles, the Wilkins's, and the Oldenlmrghs, 

 and been handed down to us with similar applause.'" 



Governor Wiuthrop's name occurs from time to time in the Philo- 

 sophical Tran.sactions, and it was to him that science was indebted for its 

 first knowledge of the genus Astrophyton. 



John Winthrop, V. R. vS. [1). 1606, d. 1676], son of the last, and also 

 governor of Connecticut in 1662, is said to have been "famous for his 

 philosophical knowledge." He was a founder of the Royal Society, 

 being at the time of its origin in luigland as agent of the colony. And 

 the second governor's grandson, John Winthrop, F. R. S. [b. 16S1. d. 

 1747] , who passed the latter part of his life in Ivngland, was declared to 

 have increased the Royal Society's repositor}' "with more than .six hun- 

 dred curious specimens, chiefly in the mineral kingdom," and since the 

 founder of the nuiseum of the Royal Society, "the benefactor who has 

 given the most numerous collections. "* 



The Rev. John Clayton, rector of Crofton, at Wakefield, in York.shirc, 

 made a journey to \'irginia in 1685, and in 1688 connnunicated to the 

 Royal vSociety An Account of several observal:)les in \'irginia and in his 

 \'oyage thither.' Clayton seems to have been a man of scientific cul- 

 ture, and to have been the author, in comj^any with Doctor Moulin, of a 

 treatise u]X)n comparative anatomy. He was of the same .school with 

 Harriot and Wood, though more philosophical. His essay was, however, 

 the mo.stimi)ortant which had yet been publi.shed upon the natural history 

 of the South, and his annotated catalogue of mammals, birds, and reptiles 

 is creditably full. 



Thomas Glover al.so published aliout this time An Account of Vir- 



' Doctor Cromwell Mortimer, in the dedication of Volume XL, Philosophical 

 Tran.sactions. 



-Tuckerman, in Archseologia Americana, IV, pp. 123-124. See also The Win- 

 throp Papers. Ma.s.sachusctts Historical Society Collections, 5th ser., VIII, p. 571. 



3 Philo.sophical Transactions, XVII, pp. 781-795, 978-999; XVIII, pp. 121-135, and 

 in Miscellaneoua Curiosa, III; also reprinted in I'orce's Historical Tracts, III. 



