326 A DECADE OF WORK AT HOME. [1844, 



of Dr. Peck had been occupied for a while as a board- 

 ing-house, and later by Dr. and Mrs. Walker. He 

 moved into it in September, and there remained until 

 the end of his life. He had a great attachment for 

 the house, as the only one in which he had resided for 

 any length of time ; and it saw the gradual growth of 

 his herbarium, needing before many years the addition 

 of a wing to give more room, until, having overrun 

 all possible places for its accommodation, it was re- 

 moved in 1864 into the fireproof building which now 

 holds it. 



The garden was laid out by Dr. Peck in 1808, and 

 the house built for him was finished in 1810. Mr. 

 Nuttall, the botanist and ornithologist, who boarded 

 in it while giving instruction in botany, left some curi- 

 ous traces behind him. He was very shy of intercourse 

 with his fellows, and having for his study the south- 

 east room, and the one above for his bedroom, put in 

 a trap-door in the floor of an upper connecting closet, 

 and so by a ladder could pass between his rooms with- 

 out the chance of being met in the passage or on the 

 stairs. A flap hinged and buttoned in the door be- 

 tween the lower closet and the kitchen allowed his 

 meals to be set in on a tray without the chance of his 

 being seen. A window he cut down into an outer 

 door, and with a small gate in the board fence sur- 

 rounding the garden, of which he alone had the key, 

 he could pass in and out safe from encountering any 

 human being. 



The garden, though small, was planned with much 

 skill, and when Dr. Gray first lived on the place was 

 much more filled up in the centre with trees and 

 shrubs, so that since one was unable to see from one 

 path to another, it seemed much larger than when 



