Brewer.] 246 [January 20, 



leges no one could well have enjoyed greater advantages for 

 pursuing his favoi'ite study, and certainly no one could have 

 better improved such rare opportunities. 



With a full appreciation of all that I aver, I claim for my 

 lamented friend, that as a general ornithologist, especially in 

 regard to his knowledge of the forms of the Old World, Mr. 

 Cassin had no superior either in this country or elsewhere — 

 it may even be doubted if he had an equal. By long and 

 diUgent study, by the most thorough investigations, and by 

 the most careful researches into the authorities, with a pa- 

 tient perseverance that nothing could discourage, he ren- 

 dered himself a complete master of the science. So perfectly 

 familiar was he with the forms of the Old World, that he 

 investigated their classification, estabUshed new genera and 

 described new species as readily in Africa as in America, and 

 the savans of Europe have accepted with deference his 

 decisions. 



Mr. Cassin has been for many years an active member of 

 the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. His valuable 

 contributions have enriched the pages of its Journal, and 

 added a world-wide reputation to its Proceedings. His 

 activity and zeal in the cause of science have aided to draw 

 around that institution munificent patrons, as well as distin- 

 guished colaborers, under whose influence, and by whose 

 means, the Academy has risen to the highest rank as a well 

 endowed and honorable school of the natural sciences. 

 Tune would hardly serve me to read even the titles of the 

 fifty-six separate and distinct papers, descriptive, analytic and 

 synoptical, given in the Catalogue of the Royal Society 

 of London, as contributed fi-om time to time by Mr. Cassin 

 to the Proceedings of the Academy, and which constitute 

 only a portion of his valuable contributions to ornithological 

 science. His more elaborate publications have been his Birds 

 of California and Texas, an octavo volume, giving descrip- 

 tions and colored engravings of fifty species of birds not 

 enumerated by Audubon ; the Ornithology of the United 



