37^ Memorial of Gcoi'ge Brozvn Goode. 



ginia,' in which he discussed the natural histor}' of the colony after the 

 manner of Wood and Morton. The Rev. Hugh Jones also published a 

 similar but shorter paper upon vSeveral Observaljles in Maryland," in 

 which, however, no new facts are mentioned. He collected insects and 

 plants for Petiver. 



Benjamin Bullivant, of Boston, was another of the men who, to use the 

 language of the day, was ' ' curious ' ' in matters of natural history. One 

 of his letters was published in the Philosophical Transactions," and his 

 notes on the "hum-bird" are sometimes referred to. 



Bullivant was not a naturalist ; he is less worthy of our consideration 

 than Harriot, although a century later. A fit companion for Biillivant 

 was John Jossel}^!. 



Josselyn's famous work entitled New England's Rarities Discovered in 

 Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Serpents, and Plants of that Country, was printed 

 in L/ondon in 1672; his Account of Two Voyages to New England, in 

 1675 (second edition ). No writer of his period is more frequently quoted 

 than Josselyn, whose quaint language and picturesque st}de are very 

 attractive. Although no more in sympathy wath his Puritan associations 

 than the author of New England's Prospect, he was evidentl}' more 

 justly entitled to subscribe himself as "Gentleman," and his books are 

 not disfigured by personalities and political aspersions. 



Josselyn does not seem tome to 1)e the peer, as a naturalist, of many of 

 those wdio preceded him. He was a bright, though superficial, man, and a 

 ready compiler. He evidenth' had some botanical work in his possession, 

 possibly, as Tuckerman has suggested, a recently published edition of 

 Gerard's Herbal, and this he used with such skill as to give him a cer- 

 tain standing in botanical literature. In his zoological chapters I find 

 little which had not lieen recorded before, while the author's fondness for 

 startling anecdotes greatly mars the semblance of accuracy in his work. 

 His catalogue of fishes is a strange olla-podrida of names and scraps of 

 information, compiled, collected, and invented. His method of arrange- 

 ment is not more scientific tlian his spirit, and it is (|uesti<)nable whether 

 he is entitled to a place among naturalists. 



Here is an exami)le of his style: 



" The /jV?.w<', " writes he, " is a salt water fish too .... one writes that the 

 fat in the bone of a Basses head is his 1)raines which is a 13'e." 



To this i)eriod belongs, also, Lawson, the author of a Histor}' of Carolina 

 and A New Voyage to Carolina, made in 1700 and the following years, 

 while acting as surveyor-general of the colony. Eawson was burnt at the 

 stake in 1709 by the Indians, who resented his encroachments upon their 

 territory. His lists of the animals and plants of the region are very full 

 and his ob.servations accurate. Coues's " Lawsoniau period" in the 



' Philosophical Transactions, XI, p. 6323. 

 = Ideni., XXI, p. 436. 

 3Idem., XX, p. 167. 



