548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" Upland and Meadow," of which the English critic, James Purves, 

 pronouncing it " the most delightful book of its kind which America 

 has given us," and declaring that "it closely approaches White's 

 1 Selborne,' " only gave formal expression to the thought which arose 

 in the mind of every reader. 



Charles Coxead Abbott was born June 4, 1843, in Trenton, New 

 Jersey, the third son of Timothy Abbott and Susan Conrad. He is 

 of Quaker descent on both sides. His paternal ancestor came from 

 England in 1G80, and his maternal ancestor, Dennis Conrad, the 

 founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, from Germany at about the 

 same time. 



Until nearly the present time the family (Abbotts) remained Quak- 

 ers, in three generations only two marriages with others than Quakers 

 having taken place. Dr. Abbott's own sympathies are with the Hick- 

 site or Unitarian branch of that denomination. 



Although no naturalist among the Abbotts* of Burlington County, 

 New Jersey, appeared in earlier generations, it is a somewhat signifi- 

 cant fact that a fondness for such studies was so marked as to lead to 

 a long intimacy with the Bartrams of Philadelphia, when the natural- 

 ists John and William (father and son) were living, and the celebrated 

 Bartram's garden on the Schuylkill was kept up. 



Young Abbott himself exhibited a very strong liking for natural 

 history at an early age, and never was afraid of living animals of any 

 kind. This fearlessness resulted frequently in stings, bites, and 

 scratches by the creatures which, too often, were rudely handled. These 

 tastes were probably an inherited trait, derived from his maternal 

 grandfather, Solomon W. Conrad, at one time lecturer on botany and 

 mineralogy at the University of Pennsylvania. 



From 1852 to 1858, inclusive, Abbott attended the Trenton Acad- 

 emy, then a good classical school, but under strict theological control, 

 whore anything savoring of science, even zoology, was frowned upon 

 as likely to produce direful spiritual results. Indeed, Abbott was once 

 punished for asserting that a whale was not a fish, the teacher insisting 

 that it was, " on the authority of Scripture.'" Rebellion against such 

 ignorance kept Abbott in ill-favor with the faculty, and practically 

 little knowledge worth the having was acquired. But, as an offset to 

 this, every Saturday and Sunday was wholly taken up with out-door 

 studies of the fauna of the neighborhood. The gatherings of these 

 " two-day " tramps were usually brought home alive, and the frequent 

 escape of snakes, lizards, and snapping-tnrtles, not only in the } r ard, 

 but in the honse, necessitated some restrictions upon his methods of 

 study, which, however, were usually circumvented, and the obnoxious 

 creatures kept turning up in many unsuspected localities. 



When, on the approach of manhood, the vital question of business 

 or a profession came up, the nearest approach to Abbott's tastes was 

 the study of medicine, and it was commenced in a half-hearted way 



