60 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



to England. He had inherited a fortune of a thousand 

 pounds a year and the estate of Nutgrove, at Prescott 

 near Liverpool, from a relative who, distrusting his 

 habit of wandering in barbarous countries, made the 

 condition that he should forfeit it unless he spent six 

 months of every year on the estate. It is said he rendered 

 this somewhat less onerous by choosing the last and 

 first six months of succeeding years so as to have a clear 

 year at his disposal. 



He also saw T. A. Conrad's 16 collection of Silurian 

 fossils, and was informed that several new Trilobites were 

 among the fossils he had sent from Carlisle. January 

 4th, 1842, he returned to New York. Later in the month 

 he had what seems to have been a serious attack of influ- 

 enza, which not yielding to treatment, he wrote for per- 

 mission to return home. On the 2Oth he left New York 

 and reached home on the 22nd. 



From Spencer F. Baird to William M . Baird. 



NEW YORK, Jan. 7. 1842. 

 DEAR BROTHER, 



I returned last Tuesday from a very pleasant visit to Philadelphia; 

 of about a week; having seen a great many curiosities & old friends. 

 I took tea one night with Dr. Marshall at Isaac Lea's, who showed 

 me his splendid collection of fossils & shells. I obtained also several 

 skins there from a young man named Woodhouse, of Muscicapa 

 Acadica & Vireo Noveboracensis. Also those birds I procured from 



16 Timothy Abbott Conrad, born at Trenton, N. J., Aug. 21, 1803 ; 

 died Aug. 7, 1878 (according to his relative Dr. C. C. Abbott). A 

 prolific writer on paleontological and other scientific subjects; 

 especially associated with the work of the New York State Survey 

 and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. One of the 

 participants in the long continued controversy between Isaac Lea.. 

 S. G. Morton and others, in the thirties of the last century. 



