234 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
age and health could properly bear. No man has retired from this 
position more universally respected and regretted. 
Any notice of his labor while still President would be incomplete 
without more distinct reference to the crowning and last work of 
his active official life, the writing of the History of this Society 
which bears the modest and inadequate title, “ Historical Sketch of 
the Boston Society of Natural History, with a notice of the Linnaean 
Society which preceded it.” This is really a laboriously compiled, 
well-digested, and complete account of the aims and doings of the 
Society from the foundation of the Linnaean Society in 1814, to the 
celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of our Society in the year 
1880. The publishing committee, of which Mr. Samuel H. Scudder 
was chairman, in charge of the great volume entitled, “ Anniversary 
Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, published in 
celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Society’s foundation, 
1830 to 1880,” erected an enduring monument of the usefulness of 
this Society, and they deserve great credit, not only for this, but for 
their selection of Mr. Bouve to be the author of a history of the 
Society, and, also, for the prefatory note to the history. This 
preface gives the reasons for the appropriateness of the publication 
of such a volume, consisting of Mr. Bouve’s history and thirteen 
memoirs based on original investigations by as many different per¬ 
sons, and then adds an appropriate tribute to the retiring President, 
which reads as follows :— 
“At the annual meeting, held a few days later, the President, 
Thomas T. Bouve, Esq., declined re-election ; having been an officer 
of the Society for nearly forty and its President for ten years, 
no man living is so thoroughly identified as he with its life and 
interest during the most eventful period of its histoiy; and it is, 
therefore, fitting that this statement should be followed by the tribute 
paid at the annual meeting to his untiring devotion to the interests 
of the Society, not only during his Presidency, but for nearly the 
whole period of its existence.” 
Then comes an “ Extract from the Minutes of the Annual Meet¬ 
ing, May 5, 1880,” with a full statement of the earnest and heartfelt 
tributes of a number of the members of the Society to Mr. Bouv6 
after their reluctant acceptance of his resignation and the election of 
his successor, Mr. Samuel H. Scudder. 
Nothing could have been more graceful, appropriate, and well 
deserved, than this simple and brief tribute, giving honor where 
