HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT 



next a blue heron, but it being spring, I 'went 

 collecting' in the vicinity, following my usual 

 inclination, before breakfast and after labora- 

 tory hours, and brought in a number of incu- 

 bated birds'-eggs. When Agassiz came into 

 the laboratory, I was extracting and preserving 

 the embryos, being interested in embryology. 

 He at once exclaimed that he was delighted, 

 and told me to put aside the skeletons and go 

 right on with collecting and preparing embryo 

 birds, and making drawings, etc. This I did 

 all that season, obtaining about 2,000 embryos, 

 mostly of sea birds, for he sent me to Grand 

 Manan Island, etc., for that purpose. Before 

 the end of the first year he gave me entire 

 charge of the birds and mammals in the Mu- 

 seum, as well as the coral collection, which was 

 large even then. 



In the case of Hyatt, who went there just 

 before I did, I think he was kept working over 

 a lot of mixed fish skeletons, more or less 

 broken, to 'see what he could make of them.' 

 A little later he put Hyatt at work on the 

 Unionidae, studying the anatomy as well as 

 the shells. Within two years he put him on 



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