PROFESSOR VERRILL 



what they could do, and also to discourage 

 those that seemed unfit. Sometimes he was 

 mistaken, of course, and the student would 

 persevere and stay on and sometimes turned 

 out well later. In fact, his treatment was 

 highly and essentially individualistic. 



In my own case, he questioned me closely as 

 to what I had previously done and learned. 



4 



He found I had made collections of birds, 

 mammals, plants, etc., and had mounted and 

 identified them for several years, and in that 

 way was not a beginner exactly. I remember 

 that before I had been with him six months 

 he told me I knew more zoology than most 

 students did when they graduated. Therefore 

 my case was not like some others. He had 

 an idea, of course, that though I had collected 

 and mounted birds, and knew their names and 

 habits, I probably knew little about their 

 anatomy. At any rate the first thing he did 

 was to give me a badly mutilated old loon, from 

 old alcohol, telling me to prepare the skeleton. 

 This I did so well and so quickly that he ex- 

 pressed regret that he had not given me some 

 better bird with unbroken bones. He gave me 

 [28] 



