Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo15amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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AN APPRECIATION OF THEODORE NICHOLAS GILL By Frederic A. Lucas THERE died in Washington on September 25, 1914, the man who may well be termed the Nestor of American zoologists, not per- haps so much from the fact that he chanced to be a year or so older than his compeers, as from his extraordinary grasp of vari- ous branches of zoologi- cal science. Theodore Nicholas Gill was born in New York, March 21, 1837. He passed part of his early life in Brook- lyn, and we infer from his " R e m i n i s- cences of the Apprentice's L i b r a r y that this an- cestor of the Brooklyn In- stitute of Arts and Sciences had much to do with turn- ing his atten- tion from law toward natu- ral history. He first became familiar with the Institute that was to ))e, in 1854, when he was seventeen, and as long as he remained in Brooklyn, made use of its library and collections and was a regular attendant at the meetings of the Lyceum of Natural History, being for a part of the time its secretary.
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The fact that shells were the objects most readily obtained and preserved by amateurs, and the accessibility of the fine ichthyological library of Mr. J. Carson Breevoort, seem to have been the factors that directed his attention to conchology and ichthyology, although, as noted far- ther on,other factors came into play later. The influence of Baird and of the Smithso- nian Institu- tion led him to Washing- ton in 1863, where for a time he was librarian of the Smithso- nian Institu- t i o n and later, assist- ant librarian of the Library of Congress. For one who achieved such impor- tant results he did com- p a r a ti V el y little original work, from a natural indolence of body which led him to take life easily, to shun the dissecting table, to relegate the lal)or of preparation to others and to utilize their work, even if he might not accept their conclusions, for he possessed to an unusual extent the ability to make use of the work of others, not l^y claiming it 9

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