174 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



of rivers and creeks, and nearly always returned with some speci- 

 men, living or dead. In college the same preference continued, 

 and he made many dissections, especially one of a mammoth 

 bullfrog, once an inhabitant of Fresh Pond, which was an object 

 of great interest to his classmates. 1 



Early, too, were displayed the taste and talent for drawing that 

 proved so helpful in later years. With little instruction, he copied 

 Hogarth's picture of the politician who was so absorbed in his 

 paper that his hat caught fire from the candle. When ten or 

 twelve years old he executed upon a panel, with house-paints, a 

 portrait of himself; the likeness was recognizable, but the tints 

 were imperfect, the hair being colored green ! 



While at the Phillips Exeter Academy the impression made by 

 young Wyman upon his fellow-pupils is recorded in a letter to Dr. 

 Holmes from his classmate, Professor Bowen: 



"He was pure-minded, frank, playful, happy, careless, not 

 studious, at least in his school-books, but not mischievous. He 

 would take long rambles in the woods and go a-fishing, and draw 

 funny outline sketches in his school-books, and whittle out gim- 

 cracks with his pen-knife, and pitch stones or a ball farther and 

 higher than any boy in the academy, when he ought to have been 

 studying his lessons. Only a few years ago, when we were chat- 

 ting together about our early life at Exeter and in college, he said, 

 in his frank and simple way, with a laugh and half a sigh, 'Bowen, 

 I made a great mistake in so neglecting distasteful duties, though 

 you may think I made up for it by following the bent of my in- 

 clinations for catching and dissecting bullfrogs. I have been 

 obliged, even of late years, to study hard on some subjects dis- 

 tinct from and yet collateral with my especial pursuits which I 

 ought to have mastered in my boyhood." 2 



iThis may be the "Skeleton of a frog, North America," numbered 1335 

 in his manuscript catalogue of the specimens now at the Boston Society of 

 Natural History. 



2 According to the college records, in his senior year Wyman stood No. 50 

 in a class of fifty-three; let no budding anatomist, however, expect to achieve 

 scientific eminence by contenting himself with a corresponding rank; some of 

 the earlier pupils of Agassiz were none the wiser for their imitation of his ex- 

 cessive smoking at a certain period. 



