Xlviii PROCEEDINGS. 



years British Consul at Newport, and finally retired on his pension to Annapolis 

 Koyal. 



Doctor Gilpin graduated at Trinity College, Providence, Rhode Island, and 

 turning his attention to the practice of medicine completed his education in Eng- 

 land. He practised his profession for some time at Annapolis, and was in the 

 habit of spending his leisure time in the study of the wild animals of the western 

 part of the Province. His frequent excursions carried him into all parts of the 

 central district at the head of the Atlantic coast waters, ground at that time 

 almost untrodden, and a safe harbor for the moose, beaver, etc. 



He removed to Halifax about the yeir 1846, and practised his profession during 

 forty years. He then removed to Annapolis, died there Mar. 12, 189-, and lies 

 buried with many of his family in tlie shadow of the old fort, and at the end of 

 the trench mai'king the advanced line of the siege which finally vested the town 

 in the English. 



He was one of the original founders of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural 

 Science, and his date of election, January 5th, 1863, marks the inauguration of 

 the Institute. His paper, the first read before the Institute, on the Common 

 Herring, was the opening paper of the long series of Transactions that now num- 

 ber seven volumes, and the first of an interesting series of thirty-four contribu- 

 tions from him to our Proceedings. At the anniversary meeting October I2th, 

 1864, he was elected Vice-President ; in 1873, lie was made President ; and he 

 retired from that office in 1878. He however continued to serve on the Council 

 and in every way to promote the interests of the Institute he had been so instru- 

 mental in founding. His longer and more elaborated papers read before this 

 Institute are about thirty in number, and would, if collected, form a very inter- 

 esting and valuable work on the Natural History of the Province. Certainly, the 

 naturalist of the younger generation who essays the task will find prepared for 

 him many faithful and exact facts. 



Among the more noteworthy of his papers may be mentioned those on the food 

 fishes of Nova Scotia, the Indians, eagles, wild fowl, the mammals of the Province, 

 Sable Island, etc. 



His services were always at the disposal of those seeking information in the 

 paths he had devoted himself to. Doctor Baird of the Smithsonian Institute, who 

 may be called the father of the great business of replanting the fisheries of the 

 North Atlantic, frequently called on his services to assist him in the determina- 

 tion of new or doubtful species of fish, their migrations in the involved ocean 

 rivers of the Northern fisheries, etc. The museum has been served by his 

 brush as well as by his pen, for he possessed the unusual accomplishment of an 

 accurate and artistic reproduction in colors of any subject being treated of in his 

 papers. 



Andrew Downs, who died on the 26th April, 1892, was born in New Jersey, 

 on the 27th September, 1811. He acquired very early in life a love of animals 

 and a delight in studying tlieir habits, and having taken up his residence in this 

 city, he started a zoological garden here in 1847, at the head of the North-west 

 Arm. It was the first zoological garden on the continent of America ; for the col- 

 lection of the Central Park, New York, was not opened till 1863, and the Phila- 

 delphia garden not until 1874. His garden at first covered five acres, but it was 



