BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 113 



held the office of private tutor in Maryland, and at the same tune began the study of 

 medicine. The rest of his pupilage was passed in Boston, and the last year of it at the 

 Massachusetts General Hospital as house student. He was graduated in medicine in 1830, 

 and at once began the practice of his profession, having given good grounds to his friends 

 for expecting future eminence. But his struggles with poverty were not yet ended. Until 

 his profession could yield him a support, he was obliged to go out of it, to earn the neces- 

 saries of life. To this end he undertook burdensome tasks ; one of them, the cataloguing 

 and classification of the fifty thousand pamphlets in the library ef the Boston Athenasum, 

 was Herculean, as any one may see who will take the trouble to look over the four large 

 folio volumes he wrote out, monuments of his patient industry and handiwork, and for 

 which he got only a pitiful return. 



The study of natural history was nearer to his heart than all other pursuits, and to that 

 he could always turn, and did, whenever he could command a few spare hours or moments 

 to do so. As a matter of course, he became a member of this Society. This was soon 

 after its organization, and to the time he died he labored for us without stint. When his 

 studies began to assume a methodical shape, his first investigations were in the class of 

 insects, of which, at one time, he had a large collection. Among his first published works 

 was a monograph on the Cicindelae of Massachusetts, printed in 1834, and in 1840 he pub- 

 lished an account of the American species of shells belonging to the genus Pupa, in regard 

 to which he found much confusion. These shells are very small, and Mr. Say, who named 

 all the species previously described, gave no figures, and consequently naturalists fell into 

 error. "I have received from our best conchologists," Dr. Gould says, "a single species 

 under four of the names that Mr. Say applied to as many different species." Dr. Gould 

 then points out how, by the use of the microscope, and a careful study of their minuter 

 details, the classification of them might be improved. The paper was illustrated by about 

 thirty figures carefully drawn by himself, with the aid of the microscope. 



In 1841, he read before this Society a paper entitled " Results of an examination of the 

 species of shells of Massachusetts, and of their geographical distribution." This is the 

 more noteworthy since the geographical distribution of animals had at that time attracted 

 but little attention, and none amongst us. Now it involves one of the most important 

 zoological problems. 



Dr. Gould also points out in this paper the influence of shore outlines, and shows from a 

 comparison of species, that Cape Cod, which stretches out into the sea in a curved direc- 

 tion some forty or fifty .miles, forms to some species an impassable barrier. Of two 

 hundred and three species, eighty do not pass to the south, and thirty have not been found 

 to the north. In the same paper he calls attention to the importance of the fact that cer- 

 tain species appear and disappear suddenly, and of the necessity, in order to construct a 

 correct catalogue of the shells of any region, to extend observations through a series ol 

 years, a consideration by which many naturalists, even of the present day, might profit. 



One of the first results of the joint action of the members of this Society, and of which it 

 has more reason to be proud than any other, was the part taken by some of them in the 

 series of admirable reports on the natural history of the State, presented to the General 

 Court in compliance with a legislative enactment. The report on the Invertebrate Animals, 

 excepting insects, was by Dr. Gould. 



