8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 37 



visited the home of Burns at Dumfries, Melrose Abbey, and Abbots- 

 ford, the home of Scott. Then they went to Edinburgh, a city still 

 reeking with history, and from there to Aberdeen and St. Andrews. 



Finally Snodgrass headed south for London, stopping on the way 

 at Durham, York, Warwick, Stratford, Cambridge, and Oxford. He 

 spent at least a month in London, traversed every section of the city 

 on foot from a boarding house on Tavistock Square, and was disap- 

 pointed only in that he did not encounter a London fog. Dr. Snod- 

 grass, in recalling this trip, describes it as one of the most enjoyable 

 events of his bachelor days ; never before nor since has he had so 

 much good food at a price that he could afford. 



At the end of 4 years with the Bureau of Entomology, Mr. Snod- 

 grass hinted that he might be due a raise ; but Dr. Howard sadly in- 

 formed him that the Department could not provide money for work in 

 anatomy and that the only chance he now had for a raise was to 

 change to another type of work. Thereupon he promptly resigned, 

 again packed his trunk, pocketed his cash savings, and went to New 

 York City. 



Since cockroaches and bed bugs, then the principal insects of New 

 York City, did not hold any particular interest for him, Snodgrass 

 now turned to the study of the human species. He attended night 

 classes at the Art Students' League and learned to draw the human 

 figure. The art-school discipline of freehand drawing under a com- 

 petent instructor proved to be excellent for training the eye to see 

 form and proportions, even in an insect, without recourse to instru- 

 ments. As a source of income, he composed jokes and portrayed them 

 in pen drawings, which now and then he sold to the comic magazines 

 of the day, such as Life and Judge ; also he did a few more serious 

 illustrations. As a pastime, he made pencil sketches of New York's 

 interesting street scenes, but the latter have changed considerably over 

 the past years. 



The life of an artist he found delightful — no hours to keep, get up 

 when one pleases, stay up all night if one wishes to study night life, 

 no responsibilities except room rent, li one sometimes became short 

 of cash, there was always the free-lunch counter, from which, by pay- 

 ing 5 cents for a glass of beer, enough diversified food could be had 

 to satisfy almost any degree of hunger. Dr. Snodgrass adds, "The 

 free-lunch counter was a great institution of the old days, but it went 

 out with prohibition. In lower Manhattan there actually was a restau- 

 rant that served meals for 10 cents." Sometimes, in order to eat or 

 pay his room rent, Snodgrass had to take a job in the art department 

 of an advertising company. Here he learned much about lettering and 



