Thomas Mayo Brewer. 103 



daily press. Having previously retired from editorial life, in 1857 

 he became a partner in the publishing firm of Swan and Tileston, and 

 for some years was at the head of the well-known house of Brewer 

 and Tileston. In 1875 he retired from business, and passed the next 

 two years abroad, during which time he made many warm friends 

 among the scientific men of England and the Continent. 



His great interest in all matters relating to popular education led 

 to his election, as early as 1844, to the Boston School Board, and 

 at the time of his death he had been recently rechoseu for the term 

 of three years to the reorganized board, of which he was the senior 

 member. His fidelity to the duties of this and other public trusts 

 was conspicuous. 



During this long period of engrossing professional, commercial, 

 and official engagements, he still maintained an active interest in 

 ornithological pursuits, as is fully evinced by his frequent contribu- 

 tions to the literature of American oi'nithology. The department of 

 oology, in its broader sense, was the rather restricted field in which 

 he labored, and in which he has ever been looked upon as a leading 

 authority. To this branch of the general subject his numerous 

 scientific papers mainly relate. Aside from his minor contributions 

 to the puljlications of the Boston Society of Natural History, and to 

 several of the scientific and literary journals of the day, and which 

 cover a period of over forty years, he published in 1840 an edition 

 of Wilson's "American Ornithology," to which he added, as an 

 appendix, a well-digested and useful " Synopsis " of the bii-ds known 

 at that time as North American. The " Brewer edition " of Wil- 

 son, — the only American edition of Wilson's w^ork, except Ord's, 

 published prior to 1871, — from its small cost, placed this delightful 

 treatise within the reach of a wide circle of readers to whom the 

 more expensive original and Ord editions were inaccessible, and 

 thereby greatly stimulated popular interest in this entertaining de- 

 partment of natural history. In addition to the original text of 

 Wilson, the Brewer edition included the synonymy and critical com- 

 mentary of the well-known Jardine edition. 



In 1857 was published the first part of his "North American 

 Oology," which forms part of Volume IX of the " Smithsonian Con- 

 tributions to Knowledge." The full title of the work — " North 

 American Oology ; being an Account of the Geographical Distribu- 

 tion of the Birds of North America during the Breeding Season, with 

 Figures and Descriptions of their Eggs" — indicates very fairly its 



