- Spencer Fullerton Baird
Spencer Fullerton Baird (
February 3 ,1823 –August 19 ,1887 ) was an American ornithologist andichthyologist .Biography
Baird was born in
Reading, Pennsylvania . He graduated atDickinson College , Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1840, and next year, made an ornithological excursion through the mountains ofPennsylvania , walking, says one of his biographers, 400 miles in 21 days, and the last day, 60 miles. In 1838, he metJohn James Audubon , and from then on, his studies were largely ornithological, Audubon giving him a part of his own collection of birds.After studying medicine for a time, Baird became professor of natural history at
Dickinson College in 1845, assuming also the duties of the chair of chemistry, and giving instruction in physiology and mathematics. This variety of duties in a small college tended to give him that breadth of scientific interest which characterized him through life, and made him perhaps the most representative general man of science in America. For the long period between 1850 and 1878, he was assistant-secretary of theSmithsonian Institution , in Washington, D.C., where he encouraged the work of the young naturalists in theMegatherium Club . On the death ofJoseph Henry he became secretary. From 1871 until his death, he was also U.S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries.While an officer of the Smithsonian, Baird's duties included the superintendence of the labour of workers in widely different lines. Thus, apart from his assistance to others, his own studies and published writings cover a broad range:
iconography ,geology ,mineralogy ,botany ,anthropology , generalzoology , and, in particular, ornithology; while for a series of years he edited an annual volume summarizing progress in all scientific lines of investigation. He gave general superintendence, between 1850 and 1860, to several government expeditions (including thePacific Railroad Surveys ) for scientific exploration of the western territories of the United States, preparing for them a manual of Instructions to Collectors.Of his own publications, the bibliography by
George Brown Goode , from 1843 to the close of 1882, includes 1063 entries, of which 775 were short articles in his Annual Record. His most important volumes, on the whole, were "Catalog of North AmericanReptile s" (1853, withCharles Frédéric Girard ), "Birds , in the series of reports of explorations and surveys for a railway route from theMississippi river to thePacific ocean " (1858), of which DrElliott Coues says that it exerted an influence perhaps stronger and more widely felt than that of any of its predecessors, Audubon's and Wilson's not excepted, and marked an epoch in the history of Americanornithology ; "Mammals of North America: Descriptions based on Collections in the Smithsonian Institution" (Philadelphia, 1859); and the monumental work (withThomas Mayo Brewer andRobert Ridgway ) "History of North American Birds" (Boston, 1875-1884; Land Birds, 3 vols., Water Birds, 2 vols).He died in
Woods Hole, Massachusetts , site of the great marine laboratory which as an institution which was largely the result of his own efforts, and which has exercised a wide effect upon both scientific and economic ichthyology.Eponymy
Natural world
*The genus "
Bairdiella " of drumfishes was named after him byTheodore Gill in 1861.
*Baird's smooth-head , "Alepocephalus bairdii" Goode & Bean, 1879.
*Baird's Sparrow , "Ammodramus bairdii" (Audubon, 1844).
*Baird's Beaked Whale , "Berardius bairdii" Stejneger, 1883.
*Baird's Sandpiper , "Calidris bairdii" Coues, 1861.
*Mottled sculpin , "Cottus bairdii" Girard, 1850.
* "Eunephrops bairdii " S. I. Smith, 1885.
*Bumphead damselfish , "Microspathodon bairdii" (Gill, 1862).
*Marlin-spike grenadier , "Nezumia bairdii" (Goode & Bean, 1877).
*Baird's Trogon , "Trogon bairdii" Lawrence, 1868.
* Tanner Crab, "Chionoecetes bairdi" Rathbun, 1924
*Pantherophis bairdi
* "Peromyscus maniculatus bairdii"ea vessel
* M.V. "Spencer F. Baird", Ocean-suveying ship
References
*1911
ee also
*
Pacific Railroad Surveys
*United States and Mexican Boundary Survey Further reading
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9805EED61430E633A25753C2A96E9C94669FD7CF&oref=slogin Link to his NY TIMES obituary, which contains much biographical data]
*
Dean C. Allard , "Spencer Fullerton Baird and the U.S. Fish Commission". New York: Arno Press, 1978.* DSB
first=Dean
last=Allard
title=Baird, Spencer Fullerton
volume=1
pages=404-406External links
* [http://www.mnh.si.edu/vert/fishes/baird/ Smithsonian Institution] --Spencer Baird and Ichthylogy at the Smithsonian
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=SmQEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=Weyprecht+International+Congress+Meteorologists&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPR1,M1 Annual Record of Science and Industry for 1877, edited by Spencer F. Baird]
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