2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



city affairs and in those of the Academy, and served for a time 

 in the Philadelphia City Councils. His brusque manner and 

 determination made him a number of enemies — temporarily at 

 least; though at heart he was kind, and to his friends always 

 cordial and genial. 



As an ornithologist Cassin occupied a rather unique position. 

 Unlike Wilson and Audiil)on, his great work was done in the 

 museum, with specimens and books, and his knowledge was 

 not limited to the birds of North America, but extended equally 

 to those of all other parts of the world. 



In this sort of study Cassin was a pioneer so far as America 

 was concerned, and he was the first of our ornithologists to 

 delve in matters of synonymy and nomenclature which figure 

 so largely in the systematic zoology of to-da3\ Bonaparte was 

 of course an adept in this branch of the science, but most of his 

 work was done after he left America. 



Cassin' s great pleasure was not in writing up the life-history 

 of a bird, but in ascertaining all that had been published about 

 it and its near relatives, and in preparing a monograph of the 

 group, with full technical descriptions and synonym)' — just the 

 sort of work, in fact, that was most distasteful to Audubon! 

 Of one of his forthcoming papers Cassin writes to Baird in the 

 usual familiar strain that he adopted to his close friends: " It 

 is a very astonishing paper, and the way it upsets, reverses and 

 otherwise interferes with everybody's names is a caution; it M'ill 

 make some of them wonder why they did not look into a few 

 of the old books a little sharper! " 



Dr. Coues has truly said of Cassin : ' ' He was the only orni- 

 thologist this country has ever produced who was as familiar 

 with the birds of the Old World as with those of America." 

 "\\"hat this meant in those times it is difficult for us to appre- 

 ciate to-day, when a glance at the British Museum Catalogue 

 will enable us to identify a bird at once or put us in touch with 

 such other works as we need, while the Zoological Record keeps 

 us informed of what our contemporaries are doing elsewhere. 

 Cassin had none of these aids, nor were even half the ornitho- 

 logical works of the day accessible to him. 



When he began his studies he says himself, writing in July, 



