98 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



concerning this primitive laboratory and museum, in part for 

 the reason that there is, so far as I know, no record of it, and 

 also that it may be set over against the existing conditions of 

 what used to be called Natural History in the University. 



When I sat me down before my tin pan, Agassiz brought 

 me a small fish, placing it before me with the rather stern re- 

 quirement that I should study it, but should on no account 

 talk to any one concerning it, nor read anything relating to 

 fishes, until I had his permission so to do. To my inquiry " What 

 shall I do?" he said in effect : " Find out what you can without 

 damaging the specimen ; when I think that you have done the 

 work I will question you." In the course of an hour I thought 

 I had compassed that fish ; it was rather an unsavory object, 

 giving forth the stench of old alcohol, then loathsome to me, 

 though in time I came to like it. Many of the scales were 

 loosened so that they fell off. It appeared to me to be a case for 

 a summary report, which I was anxious to make and get on to 

 the next stage of the business. But Agassiz, though always 

 within call, concerned himself no further with me that day, 

 nor the next, nor for a week. At first, this neglect was distress- 

 ing ; but I saw that it was a game, for he was, as I discerned 

 rather than saw, covertly watching me. So I set my wits to 

 work upon the thing, and in the course of a hundred hours or 

 so thought I had done much a hundred times as much as 

 seemed possible at the start. I got interested in finding out 

 how the scales went in series, their shape, the form and place- 

 ment of the teeth, etc. Finally, I felt full of the subject and 

 probably expressed it in my bearing ; as for words about it then, 

 there were none from my master except his cheery "Good 

 morning." At length on the seventh day, came the question 

 "Well?" and my disgorge of learning to him as he sat on the 

 edge of my table puffing his cigar. At the end of the hour's tell- 

 ing, he swung off and away, saying, "That is not right." Here 

 I began to think that after all perhaps the rules for scanning 

 Latin verse were not the worst infliction in the world. More- 



