Fig 1: Spencer Fullerton Baird Portrait from Arizona Board of Regents Marine Biological Laboratory Archives https://hdl.handle.net/1912/21109

Fig 2: From Galtsoff, 1962. p. 22, Fig. 11: Seineing in Little Harbor, circa 1875: Spencer Baird on shore, Vinal Edwards and George Brown Goode in vessel Sarah Ford. Credit: NOAA Fisheries. From NOAA archives gallery at https://apps-nefsc.fisheries.noaa.gov/rcb/photogallery/assorted.html

Background image: Little Harbor, Woods Hole, from west side, Credit- Woods Hole Historical Museum

References:

Allard Jr, D.C., 1967. SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD AND THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION: A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN SCIENCE. The George Washington University.

pp. 64-65:

“At the same time Baird was popularizing science, he was developing his professional interest in marine biology. Baird’s concern was one of many indications that biologists throughout the world were beginning to realize that the seas were a great, new field of discovery. So far as Baird himself was concerned, this interest stemmed to large extent from his annual summer field trips, which after 1854 - when he spent the season at Beesley's Point, New Jersey— increasingly turned to the seashore. This was especially the case since, at the end of his stay in New Jersey, Baird could report the discovery of a new genus and seven new species. Such results off a well-settled coast appeared to be convincing proof that marine biology offered many rewards for the enterprising naturalist. In 1863, Baird returned to the coast, spending the summer at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, a highly productive collecting spot which he would visit again and again. During the summer of 1869 he and Professor Henry E. Webster of Union College decided to collect in the region of Eastport, Maine. Then, in the following year, Baird returned to Woods Hole. As before, Professor Webster was also present. In addition, the two scientists were joined by the vacationing Senator George F. Edmunds, the intimate friend of Baird and a keen sports fisherman. It was probably because of the distinguished Senator's presence that a government revenue boat was available at times for scientific dredging in the area. The results of the 1870 field work were excellent. As Baird described them to Louis Agassiz, his collections of fishes were "quite extensive, and embrace a number of species new to the fauna of the state." Perhaps as many as twelve species were added to the catalogue of Massachusetts ichthyology.”

pp. 65-66:

“Baird was fully conscious that by this time many other biologists were turning to the oceans. In Europe, such pioneers as Michael Sars of Norway and Edward Forbes of Great Britain had already laid a foundation for the scientific study of marine biology. Forbes' assertion that life could not exist in the deep oceans appeared to many scientists, however, to be questionable. After 1855, due especially to the need to determine whether the new telegraphic cables being laid would be damaged by marine life, this thesis was more and more under investigation and revision. Another impetus was Darwin's monumental Origin of Species published in 1859. In the aftermath of this book, the pace of all biological investigation was accelerated. And, for evolutionists, the study of the oceans had special significance, since the sea was believed to be the ancestral home of all life. Further, compared to terrestrial life, the flora and fauna of the oceans were remarkably diverse in character and abundant in quantity. Finally, because of the relative simplicity of the oceanic environment, marine species lacked the elaborate protective adaptations that complicated the study of evolution in terrestrial animals.”

Galtsoff, P.S., 1962. The story of the bureau of commercial fisheries, Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts (Vol. 145). US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries.

p. 22: Fig 2.

Report, 1873. U. S. Commission of Fish and Fish and Fisheries, Report of the Commissioner for 1871 and 1872, 1,

p. XXI:

“…an extensive series of dredging operations had been conducted by myself (Baird) in the waters in the vicinity of Wood’s Hole, as long ago as 1863, when the diminution in the abundance of the fishes had not made itself so palpable.”