GENERAL MEETINGS. 65 
wide scope of his information on nearly all departments of natural 
science, his clear perception of details, together with his excellent 
judgment, which was as marked in matters of minor detail as in 
those requiring great executive ability, enabled him to draw con- 
clusions which subsequent accumulations of material have verified 
in & surprising manner ; in fact, his pre-eminent superiority as a 
systematic zodlogist is everywhere apparent. 
Birds.— When the great interest he took in birds is considered, 
and the long period over which his studies extended, it is somewhat 
surprising to find that the number of separate papers on ornithology 
published by Professor Baird sums up only some seventy-nine titles. 
It is less to their number that he owed his fame as an ornithologist 
than to their quality, combined with the fact that several of these 
publications covered practically the entire field of North American 
ornithology, and were of the nature of monographs. 
“His reputation was, indeed, established,” says Ridgway, “ by 
the first of his separate works, usually known and quoted as the 
“Birds of North America,” though not published under this title 
until two years after it had been printed by the Government as 
Volume IX of the Pacific Railroad Reports. With the publication 
of this great quarto volume, containing more than a thousand pages, 
in 1868, began what has been fitly termed by Dr. Elliott Coues the 
“Bairdian period” of American ornithology. This period, cover- 
ing almost thirty years, was characterized by an activity in ornitho- 
logical research and a rapidity of advancement without a parallel 
in the history of the science. 
Of the “Birds of North America” Coues states* that “it repre- 
sents the most important single step ever taken in the progress of 
American ornithology in all that relates to the technicalities.” The 
nomenclature was entirely remodeled from that previously in cur- 
rent use, and for the first time was brought abreast of the systematic 
acquirements of the time. The synonymy of the work, in which is 
embodied the history of investigation relating to each species, is 
more extensive, reliable, and elaborate than any before presented. 
With few exceptions, citations were original, and when, as occasion- 
ally happened, they were necessarily at second-hand the fact was 
* Bibl. app. to the Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 650. 
51 
