BAIRD, SPENCER FULLERTON Ameri can naturalist, in his time the best informed man on the vertebrate fauna of North America, was born at Reading (Pa.) Feb. 3, 1823. In 1838 a meeting with Audubon, who gave Baird ?art of his own collection of birds, turned the young man's interest to ornithology. A year after his graduation from Dickinson college (1840), he made an ornithological excursion through the mountains of Penn sylvania. After studying medicine for a time, Baird became pro fessor of natural history in Dickinson college (1845).
From the time he began his studies in natural science, Baird saw the pressing need of raw materials. By the time he was 27 he had accumulated 3,50o skins of birds; and collections of reptiles. embryos, skeletons, and skulls of North American vertebrates. This became the nucleus of the vast collection of North American fauna which he assembled after he became assistant secretary of the Smithsonian institution in 1850. The great labour of cone spondence, examination, description, and editing of reports for the Smithsonian collection was accomplished by Baird, in connec tion with the publication of the 13 fat quarto volumes of reports. In addition, Baird worked nights on the preparation of the vol umes on birds, mammals, and reptiles. His great monographs at once became classics of systematic zoology. With the appearance of his volume on birds began what Dr. Elliott Coues (Popular Science Monthly, vol. xxxiii., p. 553) calls the Bairdian period of American ornithology, lasting nearly 3o years. This volume, says Coues, "marked an epoch in the history of American ornithology." In 1878 Baird succeeded Joseph Henry as secretary of the Smithsonian institution. Through Baird's efforts, Congress created the commission of fish and fisheries in 1874, and placed Baird at its head, in which position he did work worth millions of dollars to the country and organized fish culture in the United States so well that it has been widely copied as a model by other countries. Baird's influence with the government and authorities also brought about excellent field work in connection with nearly all government surveys and the signal service bureau, from the beginning of the Pacific railway surveys. He prepared for them manuals of in struction and reports of great importance.
G. Browne Goode said of him, "There is no name which occu pies a more honourable place in the annals of American science than that of Spencer F. Baird." Among the more notable honours which he received were: Knight of the Royal Order of St. Olaf, conferred by the King of Norway and Sweden; silver medal of the Acclimatization Society of Melbourne, Australia; gold medal, Societe d'acclimatation de France; and an honour by the emperor of Germany. Baird died at Woods Hole (Mass.) Aug. 19, 188 7.
His most important works were: Birds (1858) ; Mammals of North America (1859) ; History of North American Birds (1875-84). A complete bibliography of his work and a detailed biography are given in the Biog. Memoirs of the Nat'l Acad. of Sciences, vol. iii. See also, Wm. F. Dalls, Spencer F. Baird (1915) ; G. Browne Goode, "Memorial and Bibliog.," Bulletin 20 of U.S. Nat'l Museum; C. Hart Merriam, "Baird, the Naturalist," Scientific Monthly, vol. xviii., PP.