230 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



away, if new to the ways of the family, without receiving 

 instructions for making collections or promising to enrich 

 the Smithsonian Museum. Later when budding scientists 

 were roosting in the Smithsonian towers by night and 

 digging away at specimens by day, Professor and Mrs. 

 Baird maintained a kindly supervision over the youngsters. 

 Sunday evenings they almost always gathered in that 

 homelike parlor, often to meet men already distinguished 

 in science or war, to hear of the latest discoveries in 

 the Far West, or learn the latest European theories on 

 disputed scientific questions. Miss Lucy notes in her 



reminiscences: 

 it 



Many young naturalists who were studying in the 

 Museum as well as assisting in its work lodged in the 

 Smithsonian towers. By the kindness of Professor Henry 

 many of the unused rooms, too high up for business 

 purposes, and situated conveniently for access to their 

 work were assigned to such young students as lodgings. 

 They supplied their own furniture and linen and the rooms 

 were looked after for a small fee by some of the colored 

 employes of the Institution, especially one aged darky 

 whose pride it was that he had been the body servant of 

 an ex-President of the United States. 



"They usually took their meals at boarding houses in 

 the neighborhood, though at one time the wife of Mac, 

 Peak the janitor, who lived in the basement, took some 

 of them to board. They formed an interesting and some- 

 what unique household." 



Among the friends who were special intimates at this 

 period Miss Lucy in her notes mentions Professor William 

 W. Turner, an Englishman by birth and eminent as a 

 philologist. He died in 1859, and President Felton of 

 Harvard, in an obituary notice in the Smithsonian Report 



