Coe — A Century of Zoology in America. 359 



faithful systematists remain at their tasks and tend to 

 keep the experimentalists from the disaster which might 

 well result from the unwitting confusion of their species. 



Period op Descriptive Natural History. — Previous to 1847. 



Of the few American naturalists whose writings were 

 published toward the end of the eighteenth century and 

 at the beginning of the nineteenth the names of William 

 Bartram (1739-1823), Benjamin Barton (1766-1815), 

 Samuel Mitchill (1764-1831), William Peck (1763-1832), 

 and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), require special men- 

 tion. Bartram 's entertaining volume describing his 

 travels through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, pub- 

 lished in 1793, contains a most interesting account of the 

 birds and other animals which he found. 



Barton wrote many charming essays on the natural 

 history of animals, but was more particularly interested 

 in botany. Mitchill 's most important works include a 

 history of the fishes of New York (1814), and additions to 

 an edition of Bewick's General History of Quadrupeds. 

 The latter, published in 1804, contains descriptions and 

 figures of some American species and is the first Ameri- 

 can work on mammals. 



Peck has the distinction of writing the first paper on 

 systematic zoology published in America. This was a 

 paper on new species of fishes and was printed in 1794. 

 He is also well known for his work on insects and fungi. 



Jefferson in 1781 published an interesting book 

 describing the natural history of Virginia, and during 

 his presidency was of inestimable service to zoology 

 through his support of scientific expeditions to the west- 

 ern portions of the country. 



Previous to Agassiz's introduction of laboratory meth- 

 ods of study in comparative anatomy and embryology in 

 1847, American naturalists generally confined their atten- 

 tion to the study of the classification and habits of the 

 multitude of- undescribed animals and plants of the 

 region. 



Such studies were naturally begun on the larger and 

 more generally interesting animals such as the birds and 

 mammals, and although many of these were fairly well 

 described as to species before the opening of the 19th 

 century, little was known of their habits. The natural 

 history of our eastern birds first became well known 



