TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 



97 



the very earliest. That beginning stage had brought 

 the " Contributions" to a halt. To get eggs that were 

 jfresh enough to show the incubation at this period 

 had been impossible. 



There were several ways that Agassiz might have 

 proceeded : he might have got a leave of absence 

 for the spring term, taken his laboratory to some 

 pond inhabited by turtles, and there camped until 

 should catch the reptile digging out her nest. 

 But there were difficulties in all of that as those 

 who are college professors and naturalists know. 

 As this was quite out of the question, he did the 

 easiest thing asked Mr. Jenks of Middleboro to 

 get him the eggs. Mr. Jenks got them. Agassiz knew 

 ill about his getting of them ; and I say the strange 

 id irritating thing is, that Agassiz did not think 

 it worth while to tell us about it, at least in the 

 preface to his monumental work. 



It was many years later that Mr. Jenks, then a 

 gray-haired college professor, told me how he got 

 those eggs to Agassiz. 



" I was principal of an academy, during my younger 

 fears," he began, " and was busy one day with my 

 Masses, when a large man suddenly filled the door- 



ly of the room, smiled to the four corners of the 



>m, and called out with a big, quick voice that he 

 was Professor Agassiz. 



" Of course he was. I knew it, even before he had 

 had time to shout it to me across the room. 



