4 6 



THE MUSEUM. 



and were about one-third ground down, 

 the edges being flat and smooth instead 

 of pointed and sharp. The two eye 

 teeth were slightly forward of the 

 others. 



The mound was about 1 5 feet in di- 

 ameter, and originally several feet high, 

 but as it had been plowed over for 

 many seasons it had become somewhat 

 reduced in size. The skeleton was 

 found about four feet below the surface. 



Thoreau's Mission! 



{Bradford Torrcy in the November 

 Atlantic) 



With Trroreau the study of nature 

 was not an amusement, says Brad- 

 ford Torrey in the November Atlantic, 

 nor even a serious occupation for leis- 

 ure hours, but the work of his life, — 

 a work to which he gave himself from 

 year's end to year's end, as faithfully 

 and laboriously, and with as definite 

 a purpose, as any Concord farmer gave 

 himself to his farm. He was no ama- 

 teur, no dilentant, no conscious hoby- 

 ist laughing between times at his 

 own absorption. His sense of a mis- 

 sion was as unquestionable as Wads- 

 worth's, though happily there went 

 with it a sense of humor that preserved 

 it in good measure from over-empha- 

 sis and damaging iteration. 



In degree, if not in kind, this whole- 

 hearted, lifelong devotion was some- 

 thing new. It was one of Thoreau's 

 originalities. To what a pitch he car- 

 ried it, how serious and all-controlling 

 it was, the pages of his journal bear 

 continual witness, His was a puritan 

 conscience. He could never do his 

 work well enough. After a eulogy of 

 winter buds, "impregnable, vivacious 

 willow catkins, but half asleep along 

 the twigs" (there, again, is fancy of an 

 uncloying type), he breaks out: "How 

 healthy and vivacious must he be who 

 would treat of these things. You must 

 love the crust of the earth on which 

 you dwell more than the sweet crust of 

 any bread or cake; you must be able 

 to extract nutriment out of a sand 



heap." "Must" was a great word 

 with Thoreau. In hard times espec- 

 ially, he braced himself with it. "The 

 winter, cold and bound out, as it is, is 

 thrown to us like a bone to a famished 

 dog, and we are expected, to get the 

 morrow out of it. While the milk- 

 men in the outskirts are milking so 

 many scores of cows before sunrise, 

 these winter mornings, it is our talk to 

 milk the winter itself. It is true it is 

 like a cow that is dry, and our fingers 

 are numb, and there is none to wake 

 us up. But the winter was not given 

 us for no purpose We must thaw its 

 cold with our genialness. We are 

 tasked to find out and appropriate all 

 the nutriment it yields. If it is a cold 

 and hard season, its fruit, no doubt, is 

 the more concentrated and nutty." 



A Correction 



Dear Mr. Webb: 



Some time since there appeared in 

 the Museum, over my name, an arti- 

 cle on our members of the carpodaci. 

 Since then I have become convinced 

 by further study, and by correspond- 

 ence with those familiar with the birds 

 of this county, that I was in error and 

 that what then appeared to me to be 

 different species were but different 

 phases of the same species, — Carpoda- 

 cus mexicanus frontalis. 



Several friends in the east have 

 written me concerning these birds and 

 wished me to get them sets and skins 

 of the two rarer species. This of 

 course I cannot do, as I am now fully 

 convinced that neither of them breed 

 in this county 



Shonld you see fit to print this let- 

 ter I will deem it a great favor, not 

 only to myself but to any of your 

 readers who may have been misled by 

 my notes. 



Sincerely Yours, 



Harry H. Dunn. 

 Fullerton, Cal. 



