THOMAS SAY. 



219 



joined Robert Owen in his famous scheme, a large tract of 

 land was purchased at New Harmony, Indiana, and there the 

 community was started. His plan included a college of sci- 

 ence in which Say was to be one of the instructors. Num- 

 bers of people, influenced by the arguments of the projectors 

 and the glowing accounts of the happy life to be led by a 

 people possessing all things in common and working for a 

 common good, removed themselves and theirs to this mod- 

 ern Utopia. The community, however, did not prosper; in- 

 ternal dissensions, as might have been expected, sprang up, 

 and the aid of the courts was invoked. Maclure, utterly dis- 

 gusted, went to Mexico, and left Say at New Harmony as his 

 agent, to attend to the settling of the affairs of the community. 

 This was not an agreeable task, but, without other means of 

 support, Say was obliged to accept, and continued in this posi- 

 tion until his death. This stay at New Harmony was not a 

 period of scientific idleness on the part of Say, as the numer- 

 ous contributions which proceeded from his pen attest. Say's 

 maltreatment of his stomach was continued in the West, and 

 doubtless weakened his constitution. In one of Maclure's let- 

 ters has been found the statement that for a considerable time 

 these two men lived on six cents a day each. 



At his death his collections and library came into the pos- 

 session of the Philadelphia Academy. The insects were sub- 

 mitted to another entomologist for arrangement, but through 

 an unpardonable neglect were allowed to go to complete ruin 

 before their return to the academy, and the types of hundreds 

 of species were thus irrevocably lost. The remainder of his 

 type specimens are as religiously preserved with his own labels 

 as are those of Linne" and Fabricius in London, or of Herbst in 

 Berlin. The number of new species which Say described has 

 probably never been exceeded, except in the cases of those 

 two exceedingly careless workers, John Edward Gray and 

 Francis Walker, of the British Museum. There is this in Say's 

 favour, which can not be said of the two just mentioned, that 

 his descriptions are, almost without exception, easily recog- 

 nised, and almost every form which he described is now well 

 known. Working as he did without books, and without that 

 traditional knowledge which obtains among the Continental 

 workers, it was unavoidable that he should redescribe forms 

 which were known before ; but, owing to the clear insight he 



