6 PREFACE. 



Asa suitable accompaniment, the " Reminiscences" 

 of Dr. Reynell Coates, likewise first published in " The 

 Friend," have been appended ; the whole forming a 

 delightful pocket companion for a spring or summer 

 ramble. 



The biographical sketch is from the pen of Dr. Drake, 

 of Cincinnati, and first appeared in the " Western Jour- 

 nal of the Medical and Physical Sciences." 



"The great characteristics of Dr. Godman's mind," 

 says a friend, who knew him well, " were his retentive 

 memory, an unwearied industry and quick perception, 

 and his capacity of concentrating all his powers upon 

 any given object of pursuit. What he had once read or 

 observed, he rarely, if ever, forgot. Hence it was, that 

 although his early education was much neglected, he 

 became an excellent linguist, and made himself master 

 of Latin, French, and German, besides acquiring a 

 knowledge of Greek, Italian and Spanish. He had read 

 the best works in all these languages, and wrote with 

 facility the Latin and French. 



" His powers of observation were quick, patient, keen 

 and discriminating ; and it was these qualities that ren- 

 dered him so admirable a naturalist. He came to the 

 study of natural history as an investigator of facts, and 

 not as a pupil of the schools ; and while he regarded 

 systems and nomenclature with perhaps too little respect, 

 his great aim was to learn the instincts, the structure and 

 the habits of all animated beings. This science was his 



