THE MUSEUM HIS HEADQUARTERS 35 



Hoping that this small menagerie -will have a favor- 

 able passage, I remain, 



Yours very truly, 



Alex Agassiz. 



to j. j. kaup, 1 darmstadt 



Cambridge, Feb. 25, 1865. 

 Your note of January 10, addressed to father, has 

 been received some time and as father has not written 

 you for so long, he wishes me to answer you that you 

 may not think he has entirely neglected your affairs. 

 He is very much pleased at your continued exertions in 

 behalf of our Museum and hopes that the invoices we 

 have made have been acceptable. You say nothing in 

 your letter of the Echinoderms which were sent about 

 the same time with the turtles and in which I had put 

 a package of shells selected for you by Mr. Anthony. 

 We feel quite envious of your Dinornis bones and hope 

 that the time may come when you may spare us a skele- 

 ton or a cast at any rate. Speaking of casts, father is 

 very anxious to have a suite of your magnificent casts 

 for our Museum ; but unless we can have a little time 

 to pay for them, till gold has come down again to reason- 

 able prices, he hardly dares to ask you for them. We 

 have thus far done so little to please the public and have 

 sacrificed the wishes of the common populace for so long 

 to the demands of strict scientific investigations, that 

 he feels it is about time for him to do something in 

 that way, and as this combines the demands of the pub- 

 lic and of the scientific men, he can hardly apply his 

 means to a better purpose. We shall be able to supply 



1 A zoologist of note, most of whose published work relates to birds 

 and fishes. 



