1880. | 413 | Allen. 
We of the Society will greatly miss his efficient labors in 
striving to complete the collection in the department of New 
England Ornithology, for the development of which he mani- 
fested much and increasing interest. 
In the death of Dr. Brewer our Society has truly lost a 
most valuable member, and the community, a good and wise 
citizen, one of whom it may be truly said: He was always 
faithful to the duties of every position in which he was 
placed and ever ready to work where he recognized that his 
labors would promote the public welfare. 
The following notice of Dr. Brewer’s scientific labors by 
Mr. J. A. Allen was also contributed. 
The death of Dr. Brewer removes another of the older 
American ornithologists, of whom there now remain two 
only whose period of scientific activity extends back to the 
time of Audubon and Nuttall. Dr. Brewer’s first formal con- 
tribution to ornithology, entitled “Some additions to the 
Catalogue of the Birds of Massachusetts in Prof. Hitchcock’s 
Report, etc,” was published in 1837, in the first volume of the 
“Journal” of this Society. These additions numbered forty- 
five species and increased by one-fourth the list of birds 
previously known as inhabitants of this State. Previously, 
however, he had furnished valuable notes and rare specimens 
of birds to Audubon, who, in his great work on North Ameri- 
can birds, makes frequent mention of his indebtedness to 
his “ young friend, Mr. T. M. Brewer of Boston.” 
In 1840 he became more generally known as an ornitholo- 
gist through his edition of Wilson’s “ American Ornithology,” 
— the only American edition of Wilson’s work, except Ord’s, 
published prior to 1871. The “Brewer edition,” from its 
comparatively small cost, placed this delightful work within 
the reach of a wide circle of readers, to whom the more ex- 
pensive original and Ord editions were inaccessible. It 
was enriched by the addition to the original text of 
the synonymy and critical commentary of Jardine’s edition, 
