388 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



made all his own illustrations, but did considerable for others, 

 as the shells, seaweed, and other small objects on some of Au- 

 dubon's plates of birds. Before seriously taking up the special 

 studies that subsequently made him famous, he wrote many 

 sketches of a popular- character, and occasionally drifted into 

 verse. His father being a publisher and printer, Conrad en- 

 tered the establishment as a clerk, reluctantly probably, and 

 there learned the printer's art, and when his father died, in 

 1831, he continued the business for a short time, but the love 

 of natural history was too strong to be overcome, and he 

 gave up the shop and its belongings. Because of a prefer- 

 ence for walking afield to attending religious services, a com- 

 mittee of Friends called upon Conrad, and, not accepting his 

 explanation, they directed his name to be stricken off their 

 roll of membership. Conrad did not like their action, and 

 probably it is due to this that he seldom afterward attended 

 any religious gathering, occasionally dropping into some coun- 

 try Quaker meeting, but always, as he said, for old times' sake 

 and not spiritual profit. 



In 1831 he was elected a member of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences, and, some years after, of the Amer- 

 ican Philosophical Society. Of many foreign learned 

 societies he was a correspondent, but, keeping no record of 

 such elections, the names and dates of election have been 

 lost. 



Conrad's first volume bears date of 1831, and has the fol- 

 lowing title : American Marine Conchology, or Descriptions 

 and Coloured Figures of the Shells of the Atlantic Coast. 

 Of this little volume, printed for the author, Conrad says in 

 his preface, " it is designed to supply a deficiency which has 

 long been felt by the cultivators of American natural his- 

 tory." The work contains seventeen plates, all drawn by the 

 author, and coloured by hand by his sister. In 1834 Conrad 

 published New Fresh-water Shells of the United States, with 

 Lithographic Illustrations and a Monograph of the Genus 

 Anculotus of Say. Also, A Synopsis of the American Naiades ; 

 Philadelphia, Judah Dobson, 108 Chestnut Street, May 3, 1834. 

 The full title of this little volume, with precise date of pub- 

 lication (not much larger than the title is long) is given, be- 

 cause even then questions of priority had arisen, and others 

 laid claim to some of Conrad's species. This unhappy wran- 



