8 Naturalist at Large 



I have ever seen. He can tlirow a fly a prodigious distance 

 with absolute accuracy and then at the end of the cast have 

 the fly just touch the water as if it were a bit of falling 

 thistledown. 



My brothers and I owe Father several different debts of 

 gratitude. He left us not only with the means but also the 

 opportunity to take up our several totally different ways of 

 living. I was enabled to build up a fine Hbrary and to spend 

 my life as a volunteer servant of Harvard College. Father 

 loved the out-of-doors and was a good observer himself 

 in the field, but I do not think he was particularly pleased 

 that I became a naturalist. He hoped that I would follow 

 him in his business. 



He delighted, however, in the fact that for many years 

 he had my other brothers in association with him in either 

 the executive, the seUing, or the manufacturing ends of 

 the Linen Thread Company and the American Net & 

 Twine Company. During the last years of his fife he ex- 

 tended himself dangerously, acquiring a locomotive works 

 in Chicago and other scattered interests which were diffi- 

 cult to supervise adequately. I owe a deep debt of grati- 

 tude to my brothers who at his death unwound the tan- 

 gled skein of his affairs, something at which I was incap- 

 able of giving more than a small share of assistance. By 

 injudicious handhng of his enormous outstanding loans 

 they might easily have landed me in the poorhouse, 

 but they were well equipped to make their way in the 

 world. 



No two persons were ever more completely unlike than 

 my mother and father. My mother loved New York, and 

 by this I mean the city itself. None of her younger days 



