JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL .SOCIETY. 63 



Dec. 4, 1882,* Dr. Wm. Wood, the president, paid the following 

 tribute to the memory of Mr. Beckett, whose death occurred at his 

 home in Portland, December 3, 1882. 



"It is with profound sorrow that the Society hears the an- 

 nouncement of the death of one of its earliest associates, one from 

 the few now living who were instrumental in its formation. The 

 Portland Society of Natural History was founded in 1843, and the 

 name of S. B. Beckett appears as the clerk of the first meeting, 

 called Nov. 24th, 1843. On Dec. 20, 1843, the Society was duly 

 organized, by the choice of officers, as follows : President, Hon. 

 Ether Shepley ; Vice-President, Woodbury Storer, Esq.; Corre- 

 sponding Secretary, J. W. Mighels, M. D.; Recording Secretary, 

 S. B. Beckett, Esq. Mr. Beckett continued to act as Secretary till 

 the annual meeting of the Society, Dec. 21, 1858, when, at his own 

 request, another gentleman was chosen, and Mr. Beckett was elected 

 one of the board of managers, which position he has continued to 

 occupy to the day of his death. During the whole period that he 

 w^as the Secretary, and for many years after, he was the curator of 

 ornithology. He filled this office at the time of the first fire, in 

 1854, to which the Society was subjected, losing at that time a large 

 and very valuable collection of birds, the purchase of which formed 

 the nucleus about which gathered a unique and very rare collection, 

 forming a cabinet of which we were justly proud, and the loss of 

 which is yet a source of unfailing regret. 



"Mr. Beckett was energetic in the effort to reconstruct the 

 Society, and he was ever active in the promotion of its welfare, and 

 he so continued through the long and trying periods that intervened 

 between the first and second fires, and for some time after the 

 erection of the hall in which we are now assembled, losing in this 

 second fire a much larger, more costly collection of birds than in the 

 first, as we had been fortunate enough to receive through a wealthy 

 merchant of Salem, and others, numerous representative birds of 

 the Himalayas, and the Indian Archipelago. In all the duties 

 devolving upon a comparatively small number of the members of 

 *PortlaiKl Daily Press, Dec. 6, 1882. 



