Page:Auk Volume 13-1896.djvu/36

 reflecting upon what has been accomplished in solving its mysteries, we look back upon the past, and behold, from out the mists of by-gone years shadowy forms arise refulgent with the glory of illustrious names, won by their possessors when in the flesh they struggled in this earthly literary arena, and who by the influence they exert in their works, remain with us still conquerors in the fight, though dead. How long that shadowy line has grown, and how far back into the silent past it reaches, and how rapidly, alas for the living, is that column augmented, of those scientific soldiers, who though they were members of different companies and regiments, yet each and all battled for the same cause, and died conscious of having fought a good fight, and upheld the scientific faith. In their written words they still speak to us, and point out the lines which their successors are to follow. While our thoughts are thus directed to this invisible army of once earnest earthly workers, we are reminded that we have assembled here to-day to pay our tribute of respect to one who but lately has gone to join that shadowy host, and who while with us was an honored member of this Union, a distinguished ornithologist, and to some of us a personal valued friend.

In the death of George Newbold Lawrence, though the great number of his accomplished years had diminished his scientific activity, ornithology has met with a serious loss. Born in the city of New York in 1806, his life was lengthened to almost thrice the period usually given to the generations of men, but the judgment passed by the Psalmist, on the years that exceeded those allotted to man, that they should bring nothing but "labor and sorrow," was never written for him, and the evening of his days was the most peaceful of his long life. Born in 1806, and gone from among us, as it seems but yesterday, think of the extent of time encompassed in the duration of this single life. Almost a century of active work, in the daily pursuit of an engrossing business, in the field studying the ways of our feathered creatures, in the closet laboring to solve perplexing problems that had to be met, in all that busy century of his existence there was little time yielded to idle recreation. During the period covered by this life was witnessed the rise,