PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 61 



The Western Museum, in Cincinnati, was founded about 1815, 

 by Robert Best, M. D., afterwards of Lexington, Ky., who seems 

 to have been a capable collector, and who contributed matter to 

 Godman's " American Natural History." In 1818 a society styled 

 the Western Museum Society was organized among the citizens, 

 which, though scarcely a scientific organization, seems to have 

 t-iken a somewhat liberal and public-spirited view of what a mu- 

 seum should be. To the naturalist of to-day there is something 

 refreshing in such simple appeals as the following : 



u In collecting the fishes and reptiles of the Ohio the managers 

 will need all the aid which their fellow-citizens may feel disposed 

 to give them. Although not a very interesting department of 

 zoology, no object of the Society offers so great a prospect of 

 novelty as that which embraces these animals. 



" The obscure and neglected race of insects will not be over- 

 looked, and any specimen sufficiently perfect to be introduced 

 into a cabinet of entomology will be thankfully received."* 



Major John Eatton LeConte, U. S. A. [b. 1784, d. 1860], was 

 a very successful student of botany and zoology. He published 

 many botanical papers and contributions to descriptive zoology, 

 and also in Paris, in conjunction with Boisduval, the first 

 instalment of a work, of which he was really sole author, upon the 

 Lepidoptera of North America. f 



The elder brother, Dr. Lewis LeConte [b. 1782, d. 1838], 

 was equally eminent as an observer, and was, for forty years, one 

 of the most prominent naturalists in the South. On hfs planta- 

 tion in Liberty county, Ga., he established a botanical garden 

 and a chemical laboratory. His zoological manuscripts were de- 

 stroyed in the burning of Columbia just at the close of the civil 

 war, but his observations, which he was averse to publishing in 

 his own name, were, we are told, embodied in the writings of his 



*An Address to the people of the Western Country, dated Cincinnati, 

 Sept. 15, 1818, and signed by Elijah Slack, James Findlay, William Steele, 

 Jesse Embrees, and Daniel Drake, Managers. 



t Histoire Generate et Iconographie. 



