SKETCH OF CHARLES C. ABBOTT. 549 



in 1860. The choice of a preceptor was more happy in a zoological 

 than in a medical point of view, and the result was that teacher and 

 student were " two boys together," discussing the woods and meadows 

 rather more assiduously than human anatomy. 



Often, in fact, text-books were laid aside for months, to give undi- 

 vided attention to the fauna of the Delaware River Valley. The wide- 

 reaching meadows, tangled swamps, and stretches of woodland on his 

 grandfather's farm formed, collectively, the college from which it was 

 Abbott's ambition to graduate. 



The result of this untrained field-work, during 1860-'G3 was a series 

 of papers on the habits of mammals, birds, batrachians, and fishes, 

 which were presented to a learned society for publication, and rejected, 

 on the ground of the improbability of a boy having been able to dis- 

 cover so much that was not already in the writings of authors, and 

 also because some of the observations were in many ways contradictory 

 of them. 



Young Abbott's career as an author began in 1659 with a note 

 concerning migratory birds, which was published in the "State Ga- 

 zette," of Trenton, as his maiden effort. This was followed by a short 

 series of ornithological sketches in the same paper. In 1860 he pub- 

 lished brief communications on fishes in the "Proceedings" of the 

 xVcaderny of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and an account of the 

 habits of the curious pirate perch (Aphrodederus say anus). 



The manuscripts of the rejected papers were preserved, and, in sub- 

 sequent years, the later generation of naturalists verified, in their field- 

 work, the results claimed to have been obtained by Abbott. Without 

 detracting from the credit which is justly due to them as independent 

 observers and discoverers, it is proper to say that Abbott would have 

 forestalled much of recent work in the study of the habits of animals 

 had his papers, when presented, been accepted. 



In 1865 Abbott was graduated in the medical department of the 

 University of Pennsylvania. He was married in 1867,. and from that 

 time, except for a brief interval, when engaged in manufacturing 

 chemicals, he has devoted himself to scientific study and general litera- 

 ture. In 1874 he came into possession of the Abbott homestead, and 

 was thus better enabled than before to prosecute his studies, in the 

 pursuit of which he has spent days and nights also in the field, and 

 has thus enjoyed the opportunity of studying the objects of his in- 

 quiries in all the situations and aspects of their life ; and then it was 

 that, more systematically than ever, he undertook those exhaustive 

 archaeological investigations which have been so fruitful of results, and 

 have associated him so closely with the Peabody Museum of Archae- 

 ology at Cambridge, Massachusetts, of which institution he has been 

 an " assistant in the field " since 1875. 



The fullness and value of Dr. Abbott's work in science can best be 

 realized by glancing at the essays and reports which he has published. 



