12 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



fauna. Nor should the work of Fortin be forgotten, his reports as 

 Inspector of Fisheries containing much valuable information as to the 

 distribution and utilization of our marine fishes. But one finds 

 special pleasure in mentioning the name of the Abbé Provancher who 

 in his quiet home at Cap Rouge, far from the facilities of libraries and 

 laboratories, worked indefatigably to perfect the knowledge of our 

 native insects and moUusca. Born in 1820 at Bécancour, he was for 

 some time curé of Portneuf, but his health proving insufficient for the 

 strain of clerical life he retired to Cap Rouge near Québec, and de- 

 voted himself to the study of Natural History. His first efforts were 

 applied to Botany and in 1862 he published his Flore du Canada, but 

 later gave his attention chiefly to entomology, beginning in 1874 the 

 publication of his extensive Faune Entomologique du Canada, a work 

 that may be commended as evidence of extraordinary zeal and assidu- 

 ity, while its errors may be condoned in consideration of the isolation 

 in which its author worked. The Naturalist Canadien, inaugurated 

 in 1868, was also a work of love and was carried on uninterruptedly 

 until 1891. The Abbé Provancher died in 1892, and in him there 

 passed away one of the keenest observers and most zealous naturalists 

 that Canada has produced, one who, under more favorable conditions, 

 would' have attained high rank in the roll of distinguished naturalists. 

 In the Eastern Provinces the conditions were even more favorable 

 than in Ontario and the list of those who merit commemoration cor- 

 respondingly large. Indeed, the history of Canadian Scientific 

 literature carries us far back into the early days of the French regime, 

 since it was in 1672 that Nicholas Dénys published his Histoire Natu- 

 relle de V Amérique Septentrionale, the first treatise, so far as I am 

 aware, professedly devoted to the Natural History of Canada. Dénys 

 carried on extensive fishing and trading operations on the coasts of 

 Acadia for a period of twenty years and in the course of his business 

 became familiar with the resources of the coast from Cape Breton to 

 Gaspé, his treatise giving information concerning the distribution of 

 fishes of no little value to ichthyologists. In later times Canadian 

 ichthyology received valuable attention from Moses Henry Perley, 

 who published in 1851 his "Catalogue of the Fishes of New Brunswick 

 and Nova Scotia" and ornithology found an able student in Dr. 

 Thomas McCulloch, who became principal of Dalhousie College in 

 1838 and whose valuable collections are now the property of that 

 institution. Several interesting papers dealing with the habits of 

 various animals observed in their native haunts were contributed to 

 the Nova Scotian Institute of Science by Major-General Campbell 

 Hardy, an ardent sportsman and close observer, and Mr. A. Leith 

 Adams gave a list of the chief marine and freshwater fishes of New 



