July 2, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



untouched nativity, but I must confine my- 

 self to that one phase which stimulated 

 some of the special intellectual activities 

 which led up to the event we celebrate. 



Virgin "Wisconsin was a Paradise for the 

 naturalist. Its situation gave it rare ad- 

 vantages. Its latitude placed it in the mid- 

 zone of the teeming life that migrated an- 

 nually between the high north and the 

 genial south, while its longitude placed it in 

 a peculiarly rich tract of that zone. The 

 great lake on its eastern border served as a 

 broad blunt wedge which parted the mi- 

 grating host into two great divisions: on 

 the one hand, the forest lovers who sought 

 the wooded regions of the northeast in sum- 

 mer and the like regions of the southeast 

 in winter; on the other hand, the prairie 

 lovers who preferred the great open plains. 

 Between these there was a middle zone and 

 a middle host formed in part of the overlap 

 of the two other hosts, but in part also of 

 those species which distinctly preferred the 

 border tract of "openings," the parks of 

 interspersed prairie, meadow and wood- 

 land, lying between the great forests and 

 the great plains. The southern and western 

 part of Wisconsin was one of the most 

 charming sections of this great border tract 

 of natural parks. Through this parkway 

 there swept northward each spring and 

 southward each fall a mixed multitude of 

 winged life that now, in its depleted state, 

 seems really incredible. The great woods of 

 the north and northeast, with Lake Su- 

 perior in their rear, tended to shunt this 

 host to the northwest and caused congestion 

 on their front. If I were to try to tell you 

 in specific terms of the richness and variety 

 of life in springtime, as I remember it, I 

 fear you would feel impelled to call into 

 service the famous mot of Von Buch: "I 

 am glad you saw that ; for if I had seen it, 

 I would not have believed it." 



Out of the irresistible attractions of the 

 native life of the air, the woodlands, the 

 grove-encircled prairies, the meadows, the 

 marshes, the limpid streams, and the charm- 

 ing lakes of "Wisconsin, there grew the first 

 notable stage of spontaneous scientific ac- 

 tivity, the stage of the enthusiastic natural- 

 ist. It was quite in the natural order of 

 things that where personal conditions fav- 

 ored, as among surveyors like Lapham and 

 among doctors of wide country practise 

 like Hoy, there should arise enthusiastic 

 students of the rich fauna and the flora of 

 the region, as also of the land that lay be- 

 neath and of the sky that hung overhead. 

 This stage of naturalistic enthusiasm 

 reached its climax somewhat before the gen- 

 eral conditions in the state were ripe for 

 the founding of the academy; and so the 

 pioneer naturalists of "Wisconsin, particu- 

 larly Lapham and Hoy, may be regarded as 

 the forefathers of the academy quite as 

 truly as its founders. Though the natural- 

 ist stage had already somewhat declined 

 when the time for the inauguration of the 

 academy had come, it was a very essential 

 preliminary to the founding of the acad- 

 emy. 



THE IMMEDIATE PRE-PERIOD OF PREPAEATION 



The thirties, the forties and the early 

 fifties of the last century were eminently 

 pioneer days. "With the sixties came the 

 Civil "WaT, and with the mid-sixties, its 

 close. It left the natural aftermath of war, 

 diverse currents and counter currents of 

 thought and feeling setting in devious di- 

 rections — on the one hand, a desire for 

 peace and rest, for cessation of serious 

 thought, for physical, mental and even 

 moral relaxation ; on the other hand, when 

 these first desires were in some measure 

 satisfied, a resumption of the tension that 

 had become habitual in the war, a new im- 

 pulse to tenacious pursuit, a new will to 



