memorial of one who merited his country's profoundest gratitude; 

 but the bust signifies something more, for it is a recognition of that zeal, 

 fidelity, self-sacrifice, intelligence and strength in the American char- 

 acter so preeminently typified by Spencer Fullerton Baird. 



JOSEPH LEIDY. 



By William Keith Brooks. 



Joseph Leidy was born in Philadelphia; there he passed his three 

 score years and ten, and there he died. For forty-five years he was 

 an officer in the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science, and for 

 forty years a professor in the University of Pennsylvania. His char- 

 acter was simple and earnest, and he had such a modest opinion of his 

 talents and of his work, that the honors and rewards that began to come 

 to him in his younger days, from learned societies in all parts of the 

 world, and continued to come for the rest of his life, were an unfailing 

 surprise to him. 



His knowledge of anatomy and zoology and botany and miner- 

 alogy was extensive and accurate and at his ready command. Farmers 

 and horticulturists came to him and learned how to check the ravages 

 of destructive insects; physicians sent rare or new human parasites 

 and were told their nature and habits and the best means of prevention ; 

 jewelers brought rare gems and learned their value. His comments, 

 at the Academy, on the recent additions to its collections gave a most 

 impressive illustration of his ready command of his vast store of knowl- 

 edge of natural history. 



Leidy wrote no books, in the popular meaning of the word. He 

 undertook the solution of no fundamental problem of biology. There 

 are few among his six hundred publications that would attract unscien- 

 tific readers, or afford a paragraph for a newspaper. They are simple 

 and lucid and to the point. Most of them are short, although he wrote 

 several more exhaustive monographs. They cover a wide field, but 

 most of them fall into a few groups. Many deal with the parasites of 

 mammals — among them, one in which his discovery of trichena in 

 pork is recorded. 



Two hundred and sixteen, or about one third, of his publications are 



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