CHAPTER XI 



A LESSON IN NATURAL HISTORY 



WHEN I was a boy, well started in my 

 "teens," I made the acquaintance of an 

 old naturalist, John W. P. Jenks, who taught me 

 a most interesting and most valuable lesson in 

 natural history. I think you ought to have the 

 lesson too, though it may be that you do not need 

 it so much as I did. 



The old naturalist, who was also a college pro- 

 fessor, had given to the Institute, where I was 

 going to school, a very large collection of mounted 

 birds, shells, snakes in short, a whole natural 

 history museum. Now, it happened that I knew 

 a little bit about birds, and how to mount them, 

 so I was put to work naming them, and setting 



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