VIII THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Just two years before this appointment, in 1872, we have many 

 glimpses of him at 41 as the enthusiastic and competent botanist of 

 the Sanford Fleming Expedition across the continent, so graphically 

 described in the late Principal G. M. Grant's "From Ocean to Ocean." 



In 1875 he was botanist to an expedition of the Geological Sur- 

 vey which explored the Peace River country and the adjacent Rocky 

 Mountains. From 1879 to 1881 he explored the prairie regions, and 

 the town of Macoun in Saskatchewan commemorates his exploits. 

 In 1882 he published an octavo volume of 687 pages, "Manitoba and 

 the Great North West." This, with his report in 1877 on the possi- 

 bilities of the Peace River region, predicted a development in the 

 future which is only now becoming credible. But the botanist had 

 a scientific basis for his belief in the natural fîoras of the regions. 

 An agricultural committee of the House of Commons called upon 

 him for information, and after examination presented him on the 

 23rd of January, 1906, with an engrossed motion of thanks which 

 contained the paragraph: "Optimistic as his reports and prophecies 

 were, they have all proved true. To these are to be added Professor 

 Macoun's explorations in the Canadian Yukon Territory in 1903, 

 which revealed for the first time that that far northern division of 

 Canada also possesses agricultural resources of no mean order." 



In 1881 he was appointed Botanist to the Dominion Government, 

 resigned his professorship in Belleville, and next year came with his 

 family to Ottawa, where he resided until 1912. Here his enthusiasm 

 as a naturalist made him a valued member of the Ottawa Field- 

 Naturalists' Club of which he was President in 1886-7. During these 

 30 years, with the assistance of his son, James M. Macoun, he built 

 up the greater part of the herbarium of over 100,000 Canadian plants 

 which are now in the Victoria Memorial Museum. 



His Catalogue of Canadian Plants began to be published in 1883, 

 attaining in 1902 about 1,700 pages from the Polypetalœ to the He- 

 paticœ. In 1887 he was promoted to the position of the Assistant 

 Director and Naturalist of the Geological Survey. 



Eight years previous he commenced to collect also bird skins 

 for the Museum of the Survey, which now very fully exhibits well 

 mounted specimens of all the birds of Canada. This work was 

 naturally followed by the publication of a Catalogue of Canadian 

 Birds in 1900, concluded in three parts in 1904, and re-edited with the 

 assistance of his son, James M., in 1909, giving the range and breeding 

 habits in addition to the names. 



