117 
March 2d. Business Meeting. 
PRESIDENT NEWBERRY in the chair. Sixteen persons present. 
On the recommendation of the Committee on Nominations, 
Messrs. John O. Robinson and William Falke were elected 
Resident Members. 
Dr. B. N. MARTIN announced the death of the Rev. John 
Bachman, D. D., of Charleston, 8S. C., and gave a review of 
his life and labors. 
Dr. Bachman was one of that older body of American nat- 
uralists to whose devoted exertions our Natural History is so 
largely indebted ; and among those assiduous cultivators of 
American science, none was more assiduous or successful. 
Born in Northern New York in the year 1790, he early ac- 
quired a strong taste for scientific pursuits, and gained a per- 
sonal acquaintance with the fauna and flora of his native 
state. Subsequently, when he had entered the ministry of 
the Lutheran Church, and was compelled by pulmonary 
weakness to seek a sphere of labor at the South, he expe- 
rienced fresh delight in the novel and ample field there 
thrown open to his researches. He devoted his leisure to his 
favorite pursuits, and acquired a very large fund of accurate 
knowledge upon the botany, the ornithology, and the mamma- 
logy of our entire country. For this purpose, he traveled 
much, and visited, among other interesting objects of inquiry, 
our Indian tribes; till he could say, as perhaps no other an- 
thropologist could, that he had personally examined many 
individuals of every Indian tribe existing within the last 
fifty years in the Atlantic states, from Maine to Florida. 
His observations upon the birds of America were very 
numerous and exact. He was perhaps the first to determine 
the power of distinguishing species by their note. Audubon, 
to whom he imparted this skill, was at first unwilling to be- 
lieve it trustworthy ; but the readiness with which he saw 
Dr. Bachman himself employ it, soon convinced him of its 
great practical value. 
Dr. Bachman also gave extended study to the mammalia 
of this continent. He was at great pains not only to distin- 
guish species, but also to ascertain their peculiar habits and 
characteristics, The question, for instance, of the way in 
which the young of the opossum are transferred from the 
womb to the external pouch of the mother, required very 
numerous observations before it could be determined. He 
