8 Elliot, George Netubold Lawrence. "i " n 



results of his investigations in a complete book form, but he was 

 a faithful laborer in laying the foundation upon which others 

 might raise a noble edifice. His knowledge of the birds of the 

 New World was great and varied, and no one was ever more 

 willing than he to place it all at the service of any seeking 

 information. Systematic ornithology, and the great and absorbing 

 questions of distribution, causes of migration, evolution, effects 

 of environment on races and species, natural selection, and 

 similar problems that have engaged the attention of many of his 

 contemporaries in late years, were passed unheeded, and he was 

 satisfied to restrict his work to the simpler branches of the science. 

 But it is necessary in the construction of any great building that 

 artificers of every rank and degree of skill should be available in 

 order to produce the united, complete, and harmonious whole ; 

 and so it is fortunate for our science in the New World that it 

 found so capable a master-workman, willing to devote his time and 

 abilities to the formation and strengthening of the first stories of 

 her stately edifice. The value of his labors was acknowledged 

 throughout the world by ornithologists of every nation, and 

 recognition was accorded him by a large number of learned and 

 scientific societies. He was an Honorary Member of this Union, 

 as well as one of its Founders and Member of its Council ; also an 

 Honorary Member of the Linnaean Society of New York, Foreign 

 Member of the British Ornithologists' Union, Member of the New 

 York Historical and Geographical Societies, Corresponding Mem- 

 ber of the Zoological Society of London, of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, of the Natural History Society 

 of Boston, and many others. 



He was an active and important member of the New York 

 Lyceum of Natural History, which he joined in 1845, famous 

 throughout the world wherever zoological science is known, but 

 now engulfed in the New York Academy of Sciences. It was 

 through the exertions and faithfulness of Lawrence and a few 

 other devoted men of his generation, that this old historic society 

 was kept alive in the time of its greatest need, and I remember 

 well the little band that used to meet once a week in the College 

 of Physicians and Surgeons on 14th Street in the sixties, ancb 

 under the presidency of Major Delafield, read their papers and 



