American Fisheries Society. 165 



valuable life. For data in its preparation I am indebted largely 

 to the memorial tribute of his esteemed friends and associate. 

 George Browne Goode, and to other sources as well. 



"Spencer Fullerto-n Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylva- 

 nia, February 3, 1823. His ancestry on the one side was Eng- 

 lish, upon the other Scotch and German. His great grand- 

 father on the mother's side was the Reverend Elihu Spencer, of 

 Trenton, New Jersey, one of the war preachers of the Revolu- 

 tion, whose patriotic eloquence was so influential that a price 

 was set on his head by the British government. His father, 

 Samuel Baird, wlio died when his son was ten years old, Avas a 

 lawyer, a man of fine culture, a strong thinker, a close observer, 

 and a lover of nature and of out-of-door pursiiits. His traits 

 were inherited by liis cbiblren, but especially by his sons Spencer 

 and William. The early education of Spencer was obtained at 

 a Quaker boarding school at Port Deposit, Maryland, and at the 

 Reading grammar school. In 1836 he entered Dickinson Col- 

 lege, and was graduated at the age of seventeen. After leaving 

 college, his time for several years was devoted to studies in gen- 

 eral natural history, to long pedestrian excursions for the pur- 

 pose of observing animals and plants and collecting specimens, 

 and to the organization of a private cabinet of natural history, 

 which a few years later became the nucleus of the museum of 

 the Smithsonian Institution. The inheritance of a love of na- 

 ture and a taste for scientific classification, the companionship of 

 a brother similarly gifted, tended to the development of the 

 young naturalist, and a still more important element was the 

 encouragement of a judicious mother by whom he was permitted 

 to devote the five years immediately following his graduation to 

 his own plans instead of l)eing pushed at once into a profession. 

 In 1841, at the age of eighteen, we find him making an ornitho- 

 logical excursion through the mountains of Pennsylvania, walk- 

 ing 400 miles in twenty-one days, tlie last 60 miles Ijetween day- 

 light and rest. The following year he walked more tban 2,203 

 miles. His fine physique and consequent capacity for work were 

 doubtless due in part to his outdoor life during tbesc y(>ars. 



"During this period he published a number of original pa- 

 pers on natural history. He also read medicine with a ])hysician. 

 attending a winter course of lectures at the College of IMiysi- 



