THOMAS TRACY BOUVE: MEMORIAL MEETING. 
235 
honor was due, without stint, but yet without the exaggeration that 
would have made it distasteful to the modesty of the man whose 
services they wished to commemorate in this monumental volume. 
«/ 
Mr. B ouve’s History is a quarto volume of two hundred and fifty 
pages of the same size as our Memoirs, tilled with statistics, lists of 
members and officers, detailed accounts of their services to the 
Society, occasional biographical sketches and notices of prominent 
members accompanied by nine excellent portraits, accounts of 
important meetings, a compilation of all the annual reports, lists of 
donations and notices of the donors, discussions upon all matters of 
real interest, in short all that would be asked for by anyone using 
the book as a storehouse of facts or for information with regard to 
the acts and purposes of the Boston Society of Natural History. 
The entire mass of details is arranged chronologically so that the 
events of every year are recorded together and are easily found and 
consulted, and lastly there is a complete table of contents. There 
is no index because it was thought unnecessary in view of the com¬ 
pleteness of the chronology, and lists of names, and dates of service. 
The use of this History made by myself and others to-night is 
the best possible tribute to its value, and certainly without its assist¬ 
ance no one could, without great difficult}^ and labor, treat adequately 
any period in the history of this Society. 
W e are indeed fortunate in the possession of this volume, and if 
Mr. Bouv4’s efforts in our behalf had ceased with its publication, 
our debt to him would be far greater than we could adequately 
acknowledge. 
Mr. Bouv6 also continued for many years after the cessation of 
active work in 1882 to act as Trustee and in connection with the 
administration of the Walker Bequests watched over the interests of 
this Society, faithful until death put an end to all exertion. 
But while the hand of time has taken from us his genial personality 
and the encouragement of his untiring and unselfish enthusiasm, the 
memory of such a man endures, and in the future it will be recog¬ 
nized that what has been said here to-night is not perfunctory praise 
of the dead, but a plain statement of facts, and it will be clearer 
then than now, that this Society has not only done better work and 
produced better results while he lived and worked among us, but 
that its future has been made more secure by his fostering care and 
its history richer l> 3 r the example of a life of unexampled fidelity and 
devotion. 
