THE NIDIOLOGTST. 



91 



DR. R. W. SHUFELDT. 



In this issue the editor takes pleasure in 

 presenting to the many readers of the Nid- 

 lOLOGiS'T the accompanying portrait of Dr. 

 Shufeldt — the American naturalist and 

 anatomist — who was born in New York 

 City on the first of December 1850. Dr. 

 Shufeldt came into the world a naturalist, 

 and before he had arrived at the early age 

 of fourteen years, he had made a collection 

 of several hun- 

 dred birds, and 

 completed many 

 life-size colored 

 drawings of the 

 same. Since that 

 time his activity 

 in scientific pur- 

 suits has never 

 ceased^ notwith- 

 standing the in- 

 terruptions of a 

 most remarkably 

 varied career. At 

 different times in 

 his life he has fol- 

 lowed several of 

 the professions, — 

 being at one time 

 a warrant officer 

 in the Navy ; a 

 hydrographer for 

 the Navy Depart- 

 ment ; an engi- 

 neer ; and for 

 many years a 

 commissioned 

 surgeon in the U. S. Army. Under Pro- 

 fessor Baird, he was one of the Hon. Cura- 

 tors of the Smithsonian Institution at 

 Washington, holding at the same time the 

 position of curator in charge of the depart- 

 ment of comparative anatomy at the Army 

 Medical Museum, — and at this period of 

 his life much of his scientific work ap- 

 peared. For the latter it may be said that 

 Dr. Shufeldt is the author of some four 

 hundred books, memoirs, critiques, and 



DR. R. W. SHUFELDT. 



papers, illustrated by nearly or quite two 

 thousand of his own original drawings and 

 photographs. The field they cover is a most 

 varied one, touching as they do upon nearly 

 every department of biology ; upon psy- 

 chics; political economy, and comparative 

 religion, and scientific questions affecting 

 the government, and similar subjects. 



He is a member of nearly thirty of the 

 best-known learned societies of the world, 

 including the Zoological Society of I,on- 



don ; the An- 

 thropological So- 

 ciety of Florence, 

 Italy ; and the 

 English Society 

 for Psychical Re- 

 search. — While in 

 this country he is 

 one of the found- 

 ers of The Amer- 

 ican Ornitholo- 

 gists Union, and 

 the Society of 

 ■ American Natu- 

 ralists, and others. 

 Recently he re- 

 ceived the ap- 

 pointment and 

 performed the du- 

 ties of one of the 

 Juds;es at the 

 World's Colum- 

 bian Exposition 

 at Chicago, where 

 he was a member 

 of several of the 

 Auxiliary Con- 

 gresses, including those of Ornithology; 

 of Psychical Science; and of the Congress 

 of Evolutionists. As distinguished from 

 many other scientists of the present day, 

 quite as many popular articles have come 

 from this writer's pen, as there have those 

 indulging in the most technical scientific 

 questions, and he has for many years been 

 a contributor to the best known popular 

 magazines of this country, as The Century 

 Magazine; The Cosmopolitan; The American 



