518 SAMUEL CABOT. 



college course. He was far from idle, but he chose his own kind of 

 iodustry. Students were not allowed to keep fire-arms, but young 

 Cabot would often visit Fresh Pond early in the morning and bring 

 back a duck or two, showing that he knew how to use a gun effect- 

 ively. His father called at Cambridge one day, and was told by his 

 son's friend, Amos Lawrence, that such was his habit, and that if he 

 called in the evening, when he would be welcome, he would probably 

 find a duck roasting at the end of a string which he might notice 

 hanging in front of the fireplace. His father then spoke of Sam's 

 facility in stuffing birds, and as he went away he said, " Perhaps he 

 will make a naturalist, or at least an ornithologist." 



In 1839 he took his medical degree at Harvard, after which he 

 went to Paris, where he remained two years, continuing his medical 

 studies. The fondness for ornithology which he had shown in his 

 college days lasted through all his subsequent life. In 1842 and 1843 

 he accompanied Mr. John Lloyd Stephens in his explorations in 

 Yucatan, and worked up the ornithology of the expedition for Mr. 

 Stephens's "Incidents of Travel" in that country. 



Dr. Cabot settled in Boston as a practitioner in surgery and medi- 

 cine, and took a high place in the profession. In the mean time he 

 never forgot his favorite branch of science. He was appointed Cabi- 

 net-keeper of the Boston Natural History Society in 1839, and hud 

 especial charge of the collection of birds belonging to the Society 

 from 1844 to 1854. 



In 1853 he was appointed a surgeon of the Massachusetts General 

 Hospital, in the place of the late Dr. John Collins Warren. " How 

 faithfully he served," says Mr. Lawrence, "all who were associated 

 with him, and all who came under his care, knew well. His kind 

 heart sometimes made his duties arduous " ; and Mr. Lawrence relates 

 an instance in which his humanity and self-reliance were put to the 

 severest test, and proved equal to it. 



As a surgeon Dr. Cabot was highly esteemed for his skill and con- 

 scientious attention to his patients. He was one of the first, if not the 

 very first, in this countrj' to perform the subcutaneous ojjeration for 

 strabismus. Impulsive, excitable, self-reliant, full of generous impulses, 

 not always remembering the suaviter in modo as well as the fortiter 

 in re, he was one of those men whom every friend — and every enemy, 

 if he had any — would always know where to find. Everywhere a 

 sturdy champion of the right as he conceived it, his sympathies with 

 the weak, the oppressed, the sick, the sufl^ering, could always be 

 counted upon ; and his fiery indignation against the oppressor, against 



