CHAPTER XI 



TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 



I TOOK down, recently, from the shelves of a 

 great public library, the four volumes of Ag- 

 assiz's " Contributions to the Natural History 

 of the United States." I doubt if anybody but the 

 charwoman, with her duster, had touched those vol- 

 umes for twenty-five years. They are a monumental 

 w work, the fruit of vast and heroic labors, with colored 

 .plates on stone, showing the turtles of the United 

 States, and their life-history. The work was published 

 J more than half a century ago, but it looked old 

 7 beyond its years massive, heavy, weathered, as if 

 >dug from the rocks; and I soon turned with a sigh 

 .(from * ne weary learning of its plates and diagrams 

 * to look at the preface. 



I Then, reading down through the catalogue of 

 "human names and of thanks for help received, I 

 1 came to a sentence beginning: 

 ^ " In New England I have myself collected largely ; 

 pbut I have also received valuable contributions from 

 . *the late Rev. Zadoc Thompson of Burlington; . . . 

 ^ rom Mr. D. Henry Thoreau of Concord ; . . . and 

 > from Mr. J. W. P. Jenksof Middleboro'." And then 

 iit hastens on with the thanks in order to get to the 



