On the Study of jyatural History. 245 



considered already sacred to literature and to science. The 

 names of distinguished men in American natural history are 

 familiar to the walls of Cambridge. The progress which 

 much of the natural history of the day has made, is due to 

 exertions of Cambridge scholars. In botany, its woods and 

 fields, how exuberant in rarer plants! In the science of or- 

 nithology, not a few rare birds have been added from its pre- 

 cincts; and in entomology, the name of our librarian is too 

 well known and regarded to need any comment. Indeed, 

 were I to bestow an eulogium on his merits, its hap-picM would 

 be my silent respect, standing so high and distinguished as he 

 does, as the patient and untiring investigator in those depart- 

 ments of natural science, so little understood by the general 

 mind. To his efforts in your behalf — in raising your Society 

 to its standard of usefulness and importance — in watching 

 over its germ and its development — in devoting his moments 

 of leisure and relaxation — his few and brief hours, left after 

 the discharge of arduous duties of his office, to advance a 

 taste for science — to his urbanity and unweaiied kindness in 

 affording every aid, and in rendering the stated recitations 

 even, the illustrations of a lecture — to his zeal as an Jlhimnus^ 

 in the interests of our university, and to his extensive and 

 liberal views of the value of such studies — you are well aware 

 to what extent you are indebted. The delightful intercourse 

 it has been my good fortune to maintain for many years, will 

 not soon be forgotten; recreant, as I should be, to natural 

 history, in whose annals his name will survive, while Nature 

 in her wondrous harmonies shall gladden our bosoms, and 

 guide to divine emotions the finer feelings of our hearts. 



"The efforts towards a botanic garden, under the auspices 

 of the Agricultural Society, some thirty years since, and the 

 institution of a professorship of natural history in 1805, have 

 been of considerable importance in the annals of science. 

 To the genius and patience of Peck, the avocations of agri- 

 culture are yet indebted. Within the area of that early gar- 

 den some of his favorite plants yet remain. The superb in- 

 dividual of the Camelh'a japonica, in one of the green-houses, 

 furnished a memoir of its natural history; and although, since 

 that day, what changes have been effected in the diversity of 

 forms and flowers of that species, yet to the eye of the 

 botanist of Cambridge it loses none of its merits. Those 

 walks and avenues the enterprising and modest Nuttall trod, 



