238 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
were enthusiastic naturalists who had studied medicine 
as a profession, and who went as surgeons to distant 
positions for the sake of utilizing the opportunities 
offered there of working up comparatively unknown 
regions. When the collector was himself a naturalist, he 
would usually as occasion offered, return to the Smith- 
sonian to assist in arranging and describing the specimens 
collected. Sometimes they would be sent to specialists 
outside the city of Washington, but in the majority of 
instances they were dealt with in Washington. In those 
branches of natural history where my father was a special- 
ist, he took, during this earlier part of his career, a large 
amount of this work, as his natural history publications 
fully show. 
“In the letters which I have had copied, and in the 
extracts from his journal, will be found allusions to the 
naval expeditions from which he sought and obtained 
co-operation. Travellers, too, like George P. Marsh in 
the East and others, sent him what they could collect. 
Among other names which I find in his journal of those 
promising to assist, and to whom he gave the apparatus 
requisite for preserving collections, is that of John Howard 
Payne, the author of ‘Home, Sweet Home.’ No source 
of possible addition to the Museum was left untouched. 
Correspondents sprang up in Central and South America, 
some of whom continued to send contributions for many 
years. 
“With each and all of these individuals he maintained 
a personal correspondence; and, whenever it was possible 
for him to render any personal services to these gentle- 
men, he was anxious and ready to do it as if his indebted- 
ness to them had been on his own account and not for the 
sake of his beloved Museum. For any dweller in the 
