THE YOUNG PROFESSOR 175 



to the Cyclops, &c. But it is quite impossible to preserve these 

 small species so that they can be properly studied afterwards from 

 the specimen, though, if kept in alcohol, they will answer to verify 

 some particulars of a description. . . . The specimen you sent 

 is a Gammarus, one of the Amphipoda. 



I learn that it is proposed by the Smithsonian Institute to have 

 no Curator appointed until the building is up. 



Very truly yours 



JAMES D. DANA. 



From S. S. Haldeman to S. F. Baird. 



NEAR COLUMBIA, PA., December 3, 1847. 

 DEAR BAIRD, 



I am glad to learn that your fishes turn out as well as you assert 

 in your last letter of the 26th Novr. You were just the man to clean 

 them up properly and thereby do a credit to your country and 

 yourself. 



I think your best course, now that your work is accumulating, 

 will be most decidedly to complete your synopsis of N. Am. Aves, 

 as this is necessarily more complete than anything else you have 

 or will have for some time to come. You are known as an ornitholo- 

 gist and owe this to the ornithological world. If I may be allowed 

 to volunteer a hint it is this. Afterward, write de piscibus to your 

 heart's content and become a chief authority in this slippery republic, 

 for we have no animal kingdoms here. I suppose you have seen 

 Holbrook's Southern Ichthyology. It is a pretty work and I think 

 accurate. 



I think I never noticed the Gobius you speak of as such, though 

 my notes or drawings may indicate the barbules. Speaking of 

 Salmonidae, the head of a Salmon sent to you is from a specimen 

 taken here in the Susquehanna the only one I have seen. 



I must send you my Cottus Fiscosus when an opportunity offers. 

 Ayres says I am wrong in asserting that the proportions are different 

 from the European fish yet my specimen differs from the description 

 and dimensions given by the accurate Jenyns. I do not now remember 



