116 Brewster, In Memoriam: James Gushing Merrill. [ April 



Despite his extensive experience with many of the larger mammals 

 of our western plains and mountains, his only papers concerning 

 them of which I have any knowledge are one 'On the Habits of 

 the Rocky Mountain Goat,' published in 1880, and another entitled 

 'A Silver Tip Family' (of Grizzly Bears), which appeared in 1897. 



In a letter written at P'ort Custer, on September 5, 1883, Dr. 

 Merrill says: "I have recently received an invitation to the con- 

 vention of the A. O. U., and greatly regret that it will be impossible 

 for me to be present at that time." This shows that he was among 

 the select few who were asked to help organize our Union; and 

 that, had he not been prevented by military duty from taking the 

 long journey to New York he would have been one of its Founders. 

 As it was, he was elected an Active Member at this meeting, after- 

 wards becoming a Life Member and Fellow^ He was one of the 

 earliest members of the Boone and Crocket Club; a Corresponding 

 Member of the Linneean Society of New York; an Associate Mem- 

 ber of the Boston Society of Natural History; a Corresponding 

 Member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club; a Member of the 

 Biological Society of Washington; a Member of the Society of 

 Colonial Wars; an Active Member of the Association of Military 

 Surgeons; a Member of the Washington Academy of Sciences; a 

 Member of the Association of Medical Libraries ; a Member of the 

 Cosmos Club of Washington; a Member of the Devil's Island 

 Shooting Club in Currituck Sound; and a Member of the Tourelle 

 Fishing Club in Canada. 



Early in February, 1891, to his "intense surprise," as he wrote 

 me at the time. Dr. Merrill was summoned from Fort Reno to the 

 Surgeon General's Office in Washington to take "charge of all 

 medical supplies and medical property of the Anny." This em- 

 ployment was novel to his experience and probably not altogether 

 to his taste; but he expressed no dissatisfaction with it, and con- 

 tinued to apply himself to it for upwards of three years. On 

 November 16, 1892, he was married to Mary Pitt Chase of Mary- 

 land. On March 13, 1894, he w^as made a full surgeon in the Army, 

 with the rank of Major. In October of the latter year he was 

 again ordered to a western post, Fort Sherman, Idaho, where, with 

 his wife, and mother, he remained for a little more than two years, 

 revelling once more, as it proved for the last time, in the free out-of- 



