272 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



practical and immediate value to humanity now and in the 

 future. 



His studies among food-fishes, his efforts to protect them, to 

 regulate their catch, to discover new grounds in the interest of 

 trade and commerce, carried on side by side with studies of a more 

 scientific character, were in a direct line with the sentiment of 

 Smithson: " the diffusion of useful knowledge among men." Pro- 

 fessor Baird was, like Agassiz and Darwin, a strenuous type, an 

 indefatigable worker, and the amount of work he produced was 

 monumental. In twelve years, the period between 1858 and 1870, 

 he produced works which would have been the normal output of 

 a well rounded lifetime of an ordinary man. During this period 

 he wrote the catalogue of North American Serpents; The Birds 

 of North America; The Mammals of North America; The Review 

 of North American Birds; The History of North American Birds 

 in collaboration with Brewer and Ridgeway, besides innumerable 

 reports and papers on a variety of subjects. For many years he 

 was the editor of Harper's scientific department, and during this 

 time he wrote the yearly encyclopedia called The Annual Record 

 of Science and Industry. These titles tell at once the story of his 

 wide range of thought, of his versatility, and stamp him as a natu- 

 ralist of the widest range. It is not unusual to-day to meet men 

 of the most distinguished attainments in certain branches of 

 zoology, men who are masters of the cephalopods, we may say, 

 f to whom the fishes are a closed book. In a word, naturalists have 

 L taken Agassiz's advice literally and become specialists, but Baird 

 \ belonged to the school that believed that a naturalist in the broad- 

 1 est sense should have a good, even thorough knowledge of all the 

 j animal kingdom first, as a base upon which to stand, this accom- 

 / plished, he should then take up some speciality and follow it to a 

 . logical and exhaustive finish. 



t I have often accompanied Professor Baird in a round of the 

 Smithsonian or the Collection of the American Museum of Natural 

 History and have been impressed by the remarkable range of his 

 knowledge. One afternoon in New York, we were discussing 

 taxidermy with John Bell, the friend and companion of Audubon; 



