Physical Features and Habitats 15 
Ornithological department has specimens of most 
of the birds that make their home with us during 
the spring and summer, as well as those that are 
but transient visitors.” ‘This exhibit doubtless in- 
cludes the Townsend collection, as well as those 
personally collected and mounted by Philip P. 
Sharples,® then lecturing in the building on chemis- 
try and philosophy. No catalogue of this collection 
appears, although it is still in part preserved in the 
Normal School Library. John Cassin,® short, thick- 
set and genial; entered Westtown School from 
Providence, Delaware county, in October, 1829, and 
probably soon found place among the legion of 
youthful egg collectors that flourished in the school 
“in spite of all sumptuary laws and abolition’; 
though he later became one of the most bookish 
of ornithologists. 
In the spring of 1833, Dr. Thomas B. Wilson,” 
the generous patron of the Philadelphia Academy of 
Natural Sciences; bought a farm at New London, 
where he summered and collected until 1841. 
Benj. M. Everhart! of West Chester, was an- 
other of our pioneer naturalists, and though he 
specialized in botany, he was interested in birds as 
early as 1839 and for nearly half a century later. 
William L. Baily?” of Philadelphia, who entered 
Westtown School early in 1839, was a proficient 
artist and taxidermist. He spent some of his sum- 
mers in the vicinity of West Chester. 
Lucius D. Price,'? of West Chester, was also 
a close student of bird life, and H. B. Graves,!4 
also of West Chester until the last few years of his 
