CHAPTER XI 



TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 



I TOOK down, recently, from the shelves of a 

 great public library, the four volumes of Ag- 

 assiz's " Contributions to the Natural History 

 of the United States." I doubt if anybody but the 

 charwoman, with her duster, had touched those vol- 

 umes for twenty-five years. They are a monumental 

 work, the fruit of vast and heroic labors, with colored 

 plates on stone, showing the turtles of the United 

 States, and their life-history. The work was published 

 more than half a century ago, but it looked old 

 beyond its years massive, heavy, weathered, as if 

 dug from the rocks ; and I soon turned with a sigh 

 from the weary learning of its plates and diagrams 

 to look at the preface. 



Then, reading down through the catalogue of 

 human names and of thanks for help received, I 

 came to a sentence beginning: 



" In New England I have myself collected largely ; 

 but I have also. received valuable contributions from 

 the late Rev. Zadoc Thompson of Burlington ; . . . 

 from Mr. D. Henry Thoreau of Concord; . . . and 

 from Mr. J. W. P. Jenks of MiddleboroV And then 

 it hastens on with the thanks in order to get to the 



