FOREWORD 



To few men are granted fifty years of service to any great cause. 

 In his fifty years of original and inspiring service to three leading Ameri- 

 can institutions, the National, the Brooklyn, and the American Museums, 

 Frederic A. Lucas holds an absolutely unique record. Other men have 

 served one institution throughout similar periods of life, but to render 

 brilliant and enduring service in three institutions is without a parallel. 

 We do not need to look far for an explanation; he was eminently mu- 

 seum-minded, as evidenced in his rare powers of museum expression 

 both in the artistic and natural arrangement of exhibits and the prepara- 

 tion of descriptive labels. Gifted to an unusual degree with the all-too- 

 rare talent of what may be called museum-expression, such gifts would 

 have been valueless and even dangerous if not superposed on a thorough 

 and splendid training as a naturalist. 



Dr. Lucas's lifelong researches in many branches of natural his- 

 tory, beginning in the year 1880 and ending in 1929, include no less than 

 365 titles which range in the old-fashioned way from insects to dinosaurs 

 through the whole gamut of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mam- 

 mals. With equal penetration and judgment resulting from his own 

 observations, Dr. Lucas treated this diversity of subjects from the varied 

 standpoints of comparative anatomy and osteology, of zoogeography, of 

 habit and special function, all of which conspired to furnish his mu- 

 seum mind with encyclopaedic knowledge. He did not have to read 

 books to write labels; he turned to his own resourceful observations 

 of a lifetime. 



Nor should we forget his travels, and many equally original con- 

 tributions to the cause of conservation of animal life as an important 

 part of his equipment for the Directorship of great museums like the 

 Brooklyn or the American. It was his own original work, too, which 

 fortified his contributions to the New International Encyclopaedia and to 

 Champlin's Young Folks' Cyclopaedia of Natural History. Altogether he 

 was in great demand as a writer for encyclopaedias. The greatest possible 

 monument and demonstration of his rare abilities is his vitalizing work in 

 the Department of Natural History in the Brooklyn Museum. 



The call to the Directorship of the American Museum of Natural 

 History in the year 1911 put his powers to the highest test. Fortunately 

 he was in fine health and accepted this great task with rare energy and 

 determination. His altogether unique museum training, beginning in 

 Ward's Natural Science Establishment, that fertile mother of great 

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