524 Miscellomeous Intelligence. 



rials for microscopic study. ' Yes,' has been the invariable an- 

 swer, for it saved much detention and explanation ; and, now. 

 behold, I offer them the result of that fishing. No fish for the 

 stomach, but as the old French microscopist, Joblet, observed, 

 'some of the most remarkable fishes that have been seen,' and 

 food fishes for the intellect." He delighted in his work because 

 he knew that there was no fact in connection with the structure 

 and functions of the simplest of living things that was not pro- 

 found and comprehensive, that did not reach up through all 

 species to the highest. 



The Vertebrates described by him were mainly fossil species. 

 Dr. Leidy has the honor of having opened to geological science 

 a general knowledge of the remarkable mammalian fauna of the 

 country, and especially that of the Rocky Mountain region. 

 Species had been before described, but through him the general 

 range of North American species began to be known. In 1847, 

 he published on the fossil Horse; in 1850, on the extinct species 

 of the American Ox ; in 1852, and 1854 on the extinct Mammalia 

 and Chelonia from Nebraska Territory, collected during the sur- 

 vey under Dr. D. D. Owen; in 1855, on the extinct Sloth tribe of 

 North America ; in 1869, on the extinct Mammalian fauna of 

 Dakota and Nebraska, a thick quarto volume published by the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, based on materials that had 

 been gradually and continuously accumulating for the last twenty 

 years; and in 1873 contributions to the extinct Fauna of the 

 Western Territories, making the first quarto volume of the Hay- 

 den Survey. The last two works mentioned contain over 800 

 pages of text and nearly 70 of plates. Besides these large works 

 numerous short papers from time to time appeared. 



Dr. Leidy retired from this particular field when questions of 

 priority began to start up, it being no part of his nature to 

 quarrel, and having the firm belief, as he said, that the future 

 would award credit where it was deserved. His work among the 

 fossil Vertebrates extended also to Fishes, Batrachians and 

 Reptiles of different geological periods, and among his contribu- 

 tions, that on the Reptiles of the Cretaceous period of 1865, pub- 

 lished by the Smithsonian Institution, covers 136 pages and is 

 illustrated by 20 plates. 



Dr. Leidy's zeal never flagged; his labors came to an end only 

 with his sudden death. Eight days before, he delivered his last 

 University lecture. Beginning original work before he was 

 twenty, his published papers and larger books continued to 

 appear through half a century and number over nine hundred. 

 As is well said in one of the many tributes to him published in 

 the Philadelphia papers after his decease : 



" He possessed to the end of a long career the freshest capacity 

 of seeing the opportunities and openings for discovery and re- 

 search offered by familiar phenomena. His vast store of exact 

 and diverse knowledge in the whole wide field of animate na- 

 ture was under the command of a logical judgment and synthetic 



