252 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



From Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper * to Spencer F. Baird. 



COOPERSTOWN, N. Y., Dec. 12, 1850. 



I owe you many thanks, Sir, for the very interesting documents 

 you so kindly sent a short time since; the memoir on the Indians I 

 had just been wishing for, when it arrived so opportunely, and you 

 are quite right in supposing that I am particularly interested in all 

 that concerns the red race of our own regions. Let me add also, 

 Sir, that your own papers which came with the memoir of Mr. Squier 

 were very gratefully received and not entirely thrown away upon me, 

 although I am not sufficiently well informed on those subjects to do 

 them full justice. 



As regards your inquiries after our Otsego Bass, or rather after 

 the "good-natured doctor" or "gentleman of scientific pursuits," 

 who is qualified to prepare them for the Smithsonian Institution, I 

 regret to say that, while the first are common enough, the last are 

 rare birds in our neighborhood. Our doctors may be very good- 

 natured, but they confine themselves I believe entirely to their 

 professional occupations. A year or two since, we might perhaps 

 have complied more easily with your request, for at that time there 

 were at least one or two noted fishermen in the village; and one of 

 our neighbors on the banks of the lake was sufficiently interested 

 in matters of a scientific nature, I think, to have complied willingly 

 with your application; but among the chances and changes of Ameri- 

 can life, our two anglers have gone to other parts of the country, 

 and the other gentleman referred to is now in Europe. Still we do 

 not entirely despair of sending you some specimens of the Bass; 

 my Father thinks it possible that a gentleman who has recently 

 purchased a place in our neighborhood, a physician from the West 

 Indies, may perhaps have the will and ability to prepare the fish 

 for you; at any rate he intends making the application in your behalf, 

 and should it prove successful, you shall be informed of the result. 

 The Bass are quite common still, though less numerous than in past 



2 Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of the novelist, born at 

 Scarsdale, New York, in 1813; died Dec. 31, 1894. She was the 

 author of several books in which the natural features of the region 

 in which she resided were made a pleasing element. 



