62 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
Although it is very difficult to separate the phases of his work, 
one from another, so closely were they inter-related, my theme to¬ 
night is restricted to the impress left upon zoological science by 
Baird’s original investigations. So great has been his reputation as 
an organizer, so numerous have been the publications in which he 
has garnered for the public the precious grain of the annual scien¬ 
tific harvest, that the extent and importance of his original work, 
except by specialists, is in danger of being overlooked. 
We owe an excellent bibliography of his publications to Professor 
Goode. From this we learn that, up to the end of 1882, the list 
comprises nearly eleven hundred titles, from which, after deduction 
of all notices, reviews, official reports, and works edited for others, 
some two hundred formal contributions to scientific literature re¬ 
main, many of which are Avorks of monographic character and ex¬ 
tensive scope. 
With the exception of a single early botanical paper these relate 
to the vertebrates of America and, in their several branches, cover 
nearly the entire field. Although descriptions of species in them¬ 
selves afford a poor criterion of the value of the work containing 
them, it is interesting to note that, among the terrestrial vertebrates, 
the proportion of the fauna first made known by Baird to the total 
number recognized at the time as North American varied from 
twenty-two per cent, of the whole to forty per cent, in different 
groups. 
His method of study of new material was as far removed as possi¬ 
ble from bookishness. In the case of the collections from Hudson 
Bay or the Pacific Bailroad Surveys, when birds, mammals, or rep¬ 
tiles sometimes came to hand by hundreds, each specimen having 
the collector’s data attached, the whole collection was thrown to¬ 
gether, each form to be sorted out on its merits and studied in the 
light of a multitude of specimens. 
Professor Baird’s early life had included so much of exercise in 
the shape of long pedestrian journeys with gun and gamebag, so 
much familiarity with the wood-life of his favorite birds and mam¬ 
mals, that it would have been in any case impossible to class him 
with the closet-naturalist, while to this knowledge he added a genius 
for thorough, patient, and exhaustive research into all which con¬ 
cerned the subject of his study, and a wonderful inventiveness in 
labor-saving devices for labelling, museum work, and registration. 
