394 A CENTUBY OF SCIENCE 



It is true that many of our more conspicuous and easily 

 collected animals were described long before the opening 

 of the nineteenth century, but this is to be credited mainly 

 to the work of European naturalists who had made expedi- 

 tions to this country for the purpose of studying and 

 collecting. These collections were then taken to Europe 

 and the results published there. We thus find in the 12th 

 edition of Linnaeus descriptions of over 500 American 

 species, about half of which were birds. As an illustra- 

 tion of the extent to which some of these works covered 

 the field even in those early days may be mentioned a 

 monograph in two quarto volumes with many beautifully 

 colored plates on the ' ' Natural History of the rarer Lepi- 

 dopterous Insects of Georgia. " This was published in 

 London in 1797 by J. E. Smith from the notes and draw- 

 ings of John Abbot, one of the keenest naturalists of 

 any period. 



During the early years of the nineteenth century, how- 

 ever, economic conditions in our country became such as to 

 give opportunity for scientific thought. Educated men 

 then formed themselves into societies for the discussion of 

 scientific matters. This naturally led to the establish- 

 ment of publications whereby the papers presented to the 

 societies could be published and made available to the 

 advancement of science generally. The most influential 

 of these was the Journal of the Philadelphia Academy of 

 Natural Science, which was established in 1817, and was 

 devoted largely to zoological papers. The Annals of the 

 New York Lyceum of Natural History date from 1823, 

 and the Journal of the Boston Society of Natural History 

 from 1834. The Transactions of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society in Philadelphia and the Memoirs of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston also 

 published many zoological articles. 



In these publications and in the Journal, which was 

 founded in 1818, appear the descriptions of newly dis- 

 covered animal species, with observations on their habits. 



The. number of investigators in this field in the first 

 quarter of the nineteenth century was but few, and most 

 of these were compelled to take for the work such time 

 as they could spare from their various occupations. 



Gradually the workers became more numerous until 



