43" Andrew Fackson Grayson. [ZOE 
Correspondence was carried on with Mr. John Xantus while the 
latter was stationed at Cape St. Lucas by the U. S. Coast Survey, 
and the account of Xantus’s accumulations interested and stim- 
ulated Grayson to keep on with his collecting. In one letter 
Xantus writes: ‘‘I collected 39 species of mammals, 188 of birds 
[nearly 3,000 specimens, elsewhere stated], 51 reptiles, 73 saurians, 
927 fishes, 4,088 crustacea and about 14,000 species of insects. 
Besides, about 4 tons of minerals and near 2 tons of dried plants [!]. 
The shells amount to about 23,000.” An offer of an exchange of 
birds’ skins was made by Xantus and accepted by Grayson, but 
probably never carried out. 5 
His principal correspondence was with Prof. Spencer F. Baird, 
then assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and from 
whom he received great encouragement as well as suggestions and 
kindly criticism. 
One of these letters may be introduced here, giving as it does a 
clearer insight of the life and sentiment of this self-taught orni- | 
thologist. : 
The letter was written during the time of the French invasion ot 
Mexico, and just previous to the overthrow of the Imperial Govern- 
ment, when Maximilian was betrayed, captured and shot while the 
_ civilized world stood aghast and shivering at the spectacle. 
: MAZATLAN, July ith, 1866. 
My Dear Pror. Barrp—Once more I have returned to this part of Mexico, _ 
where I have spent so many venturous years interesting to me in my “labor of 
love,” sometimes at the mercy of the waves in a mere canoe, at other times float- 
ing in the quiet estero amid the surroundings of thick and tangled mangroves or — 
climbing the mountains of Overgrown brambles and forests of high tropical vegeta- 
tion, infested by ticks and other insects, but this was pleasure. But how changed 
this place since my absence of eight months; we had trouble enough on our long 
and tedious road to and from the City of Mexico, but on reaching our old home — 
in this place we are still amid trouble and annoyances, if not really in danger, — 
caused by the trouble existing between the two opposing parties, which has so 
completely unsettled the country as to prohibit any traveling in the interior. Iam _ 
not permitted to have a gun of any kind, nor to go outside the city limits; and at 
this season of the year, too, when I so much desire to do so in order to procure — 
the eggs of some birds and the birds also. These are the difficulties, among many 
others, which a poor field-naturalist or collector, like myself, has to contend with — 
in an unsettled, Savage country like this, where every tree has its thorns, every 
insect its sting, and every Mexican his sharp-pointed knife to assassinate or rob you 
upon the highway in open day, or stealthily in the night; besides this, ‘there is the : 
pecuniary expense to contend with, which is this country is an absolute necessity. 
