Physical Features and Habitats 13 
and just beyond the county line. With the ex- 
ception of a two years’ visit to France, he resided 
here until 1808, returning to visit his father-in-law 
at “Fatland Ford” in 1812 and 1824. His en- 
thusiastic search for ornithological material doubt- 
less often found him on Chester county soil and as 
some of his published notes apply to either side of the 
river, he may be considered our first ornithologist. 
Thomas Say* entered the Friends’ Boarding 
School of Westtown, in May, 1799, being the 
seventeenth boy admitted to the newly established 
school. In those days the register number was re- 
garded as of great importance and placed on all 
clothing. Most of the school farm of 600 acres 
along the Chester creek was primeval forest at this 
time and for many years later, although the deer 
and bear had disappeared. While here, young Say, 
no doubt learned much bird-lore useful later in Gov- 
ernmental work, but the discipline then in vogue 
appeared too severe for one of his peculiarly sensi- 
tive nature and he seemed to have acquired and re- 
tained in after life to his detriment, an intense dis- 
like for his teachers and for all ordinary branches 
of study. 
Early in 1819, John K. Townsend,° then a lad of 
little more than nine years, entered the West- 
town school. Another pupil® of that period writes 
entertainingly of a poaching adventure that cost him 
and his newly found friend a sound birching. ‘Tak- 
ing a page out of the squirrel’s book, it was the 
custom of the students of this school to hoard fruit 
and nuts in boxes hidden away in the earth. For this 
