FOREWORD 



Dr. Joseph Leidy was the first distinguished naturalist 

 with whom I became acquainted. As a Jessup Student 

 at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia be- 

 tween the years 1880 and 1882 I was privileged to come 

 under his direct supervision. At that time Dr. Leidy 

 was Chairman of the Curators of the Academy and he 

 very generously took upon himself a kindly oversight of 

 the work of the Jessup beneficiaries. We spent half our 

 day working upon certain assigned collections in the 

 Academy and the other half upon the study of any sub- 

 ject that interested us. It was in these personal studies 

 that Dr. Leidy was most helpful to us. His habit was 

 to come about once a week to the Academy where he 

 would spend part of the day either in the library or in 

 his small private study. At such times he was always 

 open to approach and we were free to bring to him any 

 real difficulties that we had met in our work. To these 

 he gave kindly consideration, and after such brief inter- 

 views we always left with renewed inspiration and en- 

 couragement. He knew us well enough to call us by 

 our first names, a circumstance that put us in the very 

 appropriate relation of apprentices to master. 



As I look back on these brief contacts with Dr. Leidy 

 I am surprised at what I unconsciously absorbed from 

 them. I once sat on the outskirts of a group of young 

 schoolchildren who had been invited by him to the Acad- 

 emy for a brief afternoon talk. He spoke to them on 

 the human skull, a subject that at first sight might seem 

 far from attractive to such youngsters, but before he 

 had finished you could see the keen natural interest that 



