Historical Sketch of the Boston Society of Natural History : with a Notice 

 OF the Link^an Society, which preceded it. By Thomas T. Bouvb. 



No history of our Society can well be given without some brief account of the 

 attempts previous to its formation to interest the public in the study of Natural History. 

 Before any organized efforts were made to this end but few publications even had 

 appeared on the subject, and these are cited from remarks made by Dr. A. A. Gould in a 

 sketch of the Linnsean Society, which appeared in the Proceedings of the Boston Society 

 of Natural History in 1863.^ The most valuable of them was one by the Rev. Manassah 

 Cutler, entitled "Account of some of the Vegetable Productions naturally growing ia this 

 part of America, botanically arranged." Another was a pamphlet published by the cele- 

 brated Dr. Benj . Waterhouse, who seems to have brought with him from Holland "some 

 general notions of Systematic Natural History." The pamphlet was entitled, " Heads of 

 a Course of Lectures on Natural History," Cambridge, 1810, in which he distributes the 

 lower animals under the heads of Ornithology, Amphibiology, Ichthyology, Insects and 

 Vermes ; which latter he mentioned as " outskirts of Animated Nature extending to the 

 confines of the vegetable world." In a note he said he would " extend, contract or omit 

 parts of his programme to suit his audience." As Dr. Gould quaintly remarks, it does not 

 appear whether he ever had any audience at all. In addition to these publications 

 some articles of a practical character were written by Prof. W. D. Peck, who occupied the 

 Chair of Natural History at Harvard College from 1805 to 1822. They appeared in 

 agricultural papers, and the most important of them purported to give a natural history of 

 the slug worm and the canker worm. Dr. Gould, in referring to the Professor's work at 

 Cambridge, says, " He gave such instruction as was demanded, which was very little." 

 Harris's Natural History of the Bible, Mather's Magnalia, Thacher's Dispensatory, with 

 some treatises on the medicinal properties of herbs, and a few other papers of little 

 importance, complete the publications referred to. 



The Linn^an" Society. 



The time at length arrived for an organized effort to excite some interest on the part 

 of the public in natural science, and the men were not wanting. On the 8th of 

 December, 1814, there met at the house of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, a number of gentlemen, 

 then prominent in the community, some of whom afterwards became eminent in their 

 several professions, if not in natural science. They were, besides Dr. Bigelow, Wm. 

 S. Shaw, Octavius Pickering, Dr. Walter Channing, Ezekiel D. Gushing, La Fayette 

 Perkins, Dr. Geo. Hayward, Nathaniel Tucker, J. Freeman Dana, John W. Webster, and 



1 Vol. IX, 335. 



