EDITORIALS. 
March, 1848, the Beginning of a New Era in the History of 
Zoology in America. — It is interesting to review the condition of 
the natural sciences, and especially of zoology, in the United States 
half a century ago. The pioneers of those days are rapidly passing 
away, but the records of the societies, the journals, and the isolated 
books give one, in outlines at least, the status of zoology, while the 
reminiscences of the older men give the picture vitality. Looking 
over these old pages and numbering the stories the fathers have told 
us, we can conjure up, more or less vividly, those primitive days with 
their inadequate library facilities, their small museums supported only 
by the greatest self-sacrifice of the few, and also the low esteem -in 
which “ bug-hunters ” were held by the general public. Indeed, it 
was at a much later date that Stimpson, hunting for shells in the 
refuse brought in by the fishermen, was stoned as a crazy man by 
the men and boys of Marblehead. 
From such a review one becomes impressed with the fact that 
the zoology of that day was not held in high esteem by the colleges, 
but existed apart from them. There was, it is true, something taught 
that was labeled zoology in a few institutions. Baird was teaching 
in Carlisle, Dana at New Haven, Emmons at Williams, and Adams 
at Middlebury, and earlier still Rafinesque held a chair in Transyl- 
` vania University in Kentucky, while Nuttall for a few years gave 
private instruction to a few students at Harvard. As one turns 
over the pages in which Adams described the shells of Jamaica and 
of Panama he cannot but wonder at the nature of the instruction in 
those days. How could it have had any human interest for the 
Student? These exceptions aside, the great proportion of the natu- 
ral history work of the country was done by men without academic 
position, and largely by physicians in moments snatched from a 
busy practice. Indeed, it was regarded as the proper training for 
the profession of a naturalist to begin with the study of medicine, 
and the present writer was advised not twenty-five years ago to 
attend a medical school as an introduction to the study of zoology. 
There were then two great zoological centres in America, — Boston 
and Philadelphia. In Boston the leaders were Binney, Gould, Storer, 
Wyman, Cabot, Harris, Jackson, Bryant, Brown, and Couthouy; 
