The Three Secretaries 



course and by correspondence upon a large number of Amer- 

 ican naturalists and collectors, and it is due in part to his 

 influence that ornithology is to-day being pursued in this 

 country by a larger number of competent and well-equipped 

 naturalists than any other branch of natural history. 



The publication of the "Review of American Birds" was 

 begun in 1864, but never completed, having ceased with the 

 issue of the first volume. This has been described by com- 

 petent authorities as a work of unequaled merit, displaying 

 in their perfection the author's wonderful powers of analysis 

 and synthesis a work which has received unstinted praise 

 from all competent to estimate it, and one which has made a 

 more profound impression on foreign ornithologists than any 

 other single work on American birds. 



There were numerous minor contributions to ornithology, 

 but no other great one from his unaided pen. The monu- 

 mental " History of North American Birds," in five volumes, 

 by Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, presented fully the results 

 of the labors of the Bairdian School up to 1874; and his 

 favorite pupil and assistant, Mr. Ridgway, is now engaged 

 upon a most important systematic treatise, which, as a sum- 

 mary of all that is known of the morphology and classifica- 

 tion of the birds of north and middle America, will, when it 

 is published, repeat in its effect the volume of 1858. 



In his early years he published many minor papers upon 

 the mammals of the West, and in 1857 appeared the eighth 

 volume of the Pacific Railroad Survey Reports, which was 

 devoted almost entirely to the mammals of North America. 

 Nearly forty years have elapsed, and still no general work 

 has been published to take its place. Everything which has 

 been said in previous pages about his " Birds of North Amer- 

 ica," published in the same series in the following year, 

 applies with equal or greater force to his work upon the 



