The Bcgiiiniiigs of Am erica ti Science. 4^1 



of the science ; it included, aniont^ others, a class of men who busied themselves in 

 taking an inventor}- of the animals of the country, an important and necessary 

 work to be compared to that of the hewers and diggers who first settle a new 

 countrj', but in their work demanded no deep knowledge or breadth of view. 



It is quite nnnecessary to defend systematic zoology from such slurs as 

 this, nor do I believe that the writer quoted would really defend the ideas 

 which his words seem to convey, althoug-h, as Professor Jtidd has regret- 

 fully confessed in his recent address before the Zoological Society of 

 IvOndon, systematic zoologists and botanists have become somewhat rare 

 and out of fashion in Europe iii modern times. 



The best vindication of the wisdom of our early writers will be, I think, 

 the presentation of a cotmter quotation from another presidential address, 

 that of the venerable Doctor Bentham before the Linnsean Society of 

 London, in 1867: 



It is scarcely half a century [wrote Bentham], since our American brethren 

 applied themselves in earnest to the investigation of the natural productions and 

 physical condition of their vast continent, their progress, especially during the 

 latter half of that period, had been very rapid until the outbreak of the recent war, 

 so deplorable in its eflFects in the interests of science as well as on the material pros- 

 perity of their country. The peculiar condition of the North American Continent 

 requires imperatively that its physical and biological statistics should be accurately 

 collected and authentically recorded, and that this should be speedily done. It is 

 more than anycountr}', except our Australian colonies, in a state of transition. Vast 

 tracts of land are still in what may be called almost a primitive state, unmodified 

 by the effects of civilization, uninhabited, or tenanted only b}' the remnants of 

 ancient tribes, whose unsettled life never ejercised much influence over the natural 

 productions of the country. But this state of things is rapidly passing away; the 

 invasion and steady progress of a civilized population, whilst changing generally 

 the face of nature, is obliterating many of the evidences of a former state of things. 

 It may be true that the call for recording the traces of previous conditions may be 

 particularly strong in Ethnolog}' and Archaeology; biit in our own branches of the 

 science, the observations and consequent theories of Darwin having called special 

 attention to the history of species, it becomes particularly important that accurate 

 biological statistics should be obtained for future comparison in those countries 

 where the circumstances influencing those conditions are the most rapidly changing. 

 The larger races of wild animals are dwindling down, like the aboriginal inhabit- 

 ants, under the deadly influence of civilized man. Myriads of the lower orders of 

 animal life, as well as of plants, disappear with the destruction of forests, the drain- 

 age of swamps, and the gradual spread of cultivation, and their places are occupied 

 by foreign invaders. Other races, no doubt, without actually disappearing, undergo 

 a gradual change under the new order of things, which, if perceptible only in the 

 course of successive generations, recjuire so much the more for future proof an accu- 

 rate record of their state in the still xmsettled condition of the country. In the Old 

 World almost every attempt to compare the present state of vegetation or animal 

 life with that which existed in uncivilized times is in a great measure frustrated by 

 the absolute want of evidence as to that former state ; but in North America the 

 change is going forward as it were close under the eye of the observer. This con- 

 sideration may one day give great value to the reports of the naturalist sent bv the 

 Government, as we have seen, at the instigation of the Smithsonian Institution and 

 otlier promoters of science, to accompany the surveys of new territories. 



