ROBERT EVANS SNODGRASS — THURMAN 7 



some magazine covers, designs of clay-modeled animals, and was to 

 be taken on the staff at the San Francisco Academy of Sciences. How- 

 ever, the morning after he had been accepted by the Academy, the 

 earthquake of 1906 shook up things, and then the fire came. He was 

 living at the time south of Market Street with Sidney Peixotto, 

 brother of the artist Ernest Peixotto, and several young men associ- 

 ated with him in a boys' club. Directly across the street was a large 

 playground. After the earthquake shock, which left the house still 

 standing, they all moved into the playground with whatever they could 

 salvage. (All Snodgrass's possessions were contained in one trunk.) 

 Here, with a large crowd of other refugees, they lived in an improvised 

 shelter while everything surrounding them was in flames. After 

 several weeks of "camping out," Snodgrass packed his trunk and went 

 home to Ontario for the summer. 



In the fall of 1906 he cashed an insurance policy in order to go to 

 Washington, D. C. Dr. L. O. Howard, then Chief of the Bureau of 

 Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, took him on the staff 

 at a salary of $60 a month, and later raised it to $100. During the 

 next 4 years in the Bureau he produced 5 more publications (20 to 

 24). Dr. E. F. Phillips, then Head of Apiculture, gave him the op- 

 portunity to do his first work on the anatomy of the honey bee. 



By the summer of 1909 he had a bank account of about $300 and 

 decided to take a trip to England and Scotland. This being in the days 

 before passports and accumulated leave, he was granted a 3-month 

 furlough from the Bureau. He purchased a round-trip ticket and took 

 passage from Baltimore on a so-called cattle steamer. The steers, of 

 course, traveled in the steerage and did not mix with the upper-deck 

 passengers, who, besides Snodgrass, included American tourists, a 

 Cambridge professor, and some prospective Oxford students. After 

 10 days on the Atlantic Ocean, they landed at Liverpool, and the next 

 day Snodgrass took a train to Chester, a quaint old town with its 

 ancient Roman wall still intact. Here he spent a week or so and made 

 sketches of antique houses, the remains of an ancient abbey, and some 

 other scenery. 



From Chester he went north to Glasgow, where he visited a former 

 Stanford roommate, a native of Scotland who at the time was teach- 

 ing botany at the University. The friend was living just as bachelors 

 do in Dickens's stories, with his meals served in his room by the land- 

 lady. To honor Mr. Snodgrass, the landlady served a haggis, that 

 famous Scotch dish, which is a sheep's stomach stuffed and seasoned 

 with too many things to inquire about, all thoroughly boiled. It was 

 quite an experience for the American. Mr. Snodgrass and his friend 



