Thomas Say (1787-1834), American naturalist. A self-taught naturalist, Say helped found the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He made numerous specimen- collecting expeditions to frontier areas, to Florida, the Rocky Mountains, the Missouri River and the Mississippi River. In 1826 he travelled on the Boatload of Knowledge to the New Harmony Settlement in Indiana, a utopian experiment. Say married Lucy Way Sistare, an artist and illustrator of specimens. He wrote two classic works; American Entomology and American Conchology. He described more than 1,000 new species of beetles, more than 400 species of other insects, and seven species of snakes.