Page:A Short History of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1909).djvu/31

Rh The first recipient of benefits from the Jessup endowment was Charles Conrad Abbott, then engaged in the study of ichthyology, but later recognized as an authority on the Stone Age in America and as the author of graceful contributions to the literature of nature study.

Harrison Allen had begun his fine work on the bats and had contributed his first papers to the Proceedings for 1861. They were, in common with those prepared by him in later years, characterized by painstaking accuracy and remain of permanent value, conscientiousness being the keynote of the author's character and work.

John L. Le Conte was adding to his reputation as one of the most accomplished of American naturalists by a series of papers on the coleoptera. From him his friend and protégé, George H. Horn, was drawing the inspiration that enabled him to secure a distinguished position in the same department of science.

Thomas Meehan had been elected a member ten years before and was contributing to the Proceedings the results of his observations on the physiology of plants, continued until his death in 1901. He was indefatigable as Conservator of the Botanical Section, and gave much time and labor, even when suffering from the illness which proved fatal, to the increase and care of the herbarium. He was an acute observer and graceful recorder of the life histories of plants, and it is far from being to his discredit that he never, as far as known, thought it worth while to describe a new species.

John Warner's communications on the mathematics of organic morphology gave a novel interest to several of the meetings,