22 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



however, one or two stories of his falling into a rage 

 over some especially trying circumstance, when nearly 

 grown, so that it is possible that his serene bearing was 

 owing to self-discipline as well as to natural amiability. 

 "I never heard that his father had any especial 

 favorite among his children; but certainly he was very 

 fond of Spencer and made a great pet of him as far as 

 his somewhat strict ideas of discipline would permit. 

 He was a very kind father and I do not believe that he 

 ever punished the child except as a matter of what he 

 believed to be absolute necessity, but he was not one 

 who would 'spare the rod and spoil the child' when he 

 thought that a good sound whipping would be beneficial. 

 My father's principal recollection of his own father was 

 of pleasant walks in the country, to which he attributed 

 the germ of that love for Nature which afterwards blos- 

 somed into his passion for natural history. It is possible 

 that my grandfather recognized in the child tastes and 

 tendencies akin to his own (whether he knew that they 

 were stronger than his own or not, one cannot say) which 

 he resolved to foster. One of the legends of my father's 

 very early childhood is of his trotting after his father, 

 when my grandfather was weeding or working in his 

 garden, with a little basket on his arm ready to receive 

 any little plant or flower which his father might give 

 him, or to make himself useful by carrying away in it a 

 tiny load of weeds to be thrown away, or a few bulbs or 

 roots to be carried to another part of the garden for 

 transplanting. In the two letters in my father's collec- 

 tion, labelled in his handwriting, 'My father,' there are 

 admonitions not to forget to water the garden, showing 

 this to have been one of the tasks set for the child to 

 fulfil. 



