316 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



a memorial address delivered before the American Philosophical 

 Society said: 



"While a school boy he relieved his studies of the classics and 

 the regular course in which boys of his age were drilled by ex- 

 cursions into the fields and woods. Reptile life especially interested 

 him, and he sought salamanders, snakes and tortoises under rocks, 

 stones, fallen trees and layers of leaves, as well as in the ponds 

 and streams of his vicinage. The trophies of his excursions were 

 identified from descriptions in the works in which they were 

 treated, as well as by comparison with identified specimens in the 

 museum of The Academy [of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia]." 



Professor Henry F. Osborn, his intimate friend and literary exec- 

 utor, writes, "the principal impression he gave in boyhood was of 

 incessant activity in mind and body, reaching in every direction for 

 knowledge, and of great independence in character and action." 



His academic education was received in the Westtown Academy, 

 a Quaker institution, where he came under the influence of Dr. 

 Joseph Thomas and from whom he obtained a passing knowledge 

 of Latin and Greek. In a letter written at this time he says: 



"I caught a large water snake or water wampum as they are 

 called here one of the Colubers in Brandywine, and brought it 

 home. It was about as long as my leg, but very thick for its 

 length, being somewhat more than two inches in diameter in one 

 place. I afterwards found that it had eaten a large bull frog 

 which somewhat increased its natural thickness. The people told 

 me it would bite me, for everybody almost about here thinks 

 water wampums are poisonous, and, indeed the way it struck at 

 me scared me a little, but I soon convinced myself it was not, by 

 examining its mouth which wanted fangs, and as all non- venomous 

 have, it had four rows of small teeth in its upper, and two in its 

 lower jaw, and two rows of scales under the tail." 



He does not appear to have had any instruction in any biological 

 science and had no regular collegiate training, although for a year 

 he studied anatomy in the laboratories of the University of Penn- 

 sylvania under the illustrious Leidy, but after all, according to 

 Osborn, "it is evident that he owed far more to paternal guidance 

 in the direct study of nature and to his own impulses as a young 



