JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ. 



1807-1873. 



JEAN Louis RODOLPHE AGASSIZ was born in the Swiss vil- 

 lage of Metier, on the shore of Lake Morat, May 28, 1807. 

 His father, Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, was a clergyman ; his 

 mother, Rose Mayor, was the daughter of a physician of Cud- 

 refin, a village on the shore of Lake Neuchatel, about four 

 miles away. Having lost her first four children in infancy his 

 mother watched anxiously over his early years. 



Louis's interest in the animal kingdom appeared at an early 

 age. A great stone basin behind the parsonage house, through 

 which a pure spring of water always flowed, was his first aquari- 

 um. He had also a variety of other pets birds, field-mice, 

 hares, rabbits, guinea-pigs, etc. Although fish are commonly 

 looked upon as among the most intractable of animals, young 

 Louis early gained such a knowledge of their haunts and habits 

 as to have a surprising power over them. He and his brother 

 Auguste, two years younger than Louis, had little need of 

 hook or net for capturing the finny denizens of the lake. 

 "They acquired such dexterity that when bathing they could 

 seize the fish even in the open water, attracting them by little 

 arts to which the fish submitted as to a kind of fascination." 

 Almost every country-bred boy learns more or less of such 

 field and water craft, but in Agassiz it was the foundation of a 

 career. Like many another bright and nimble-fingered lad, 

 too, he imitated the arts of the mechanics who came to his 

 father's house from time to time, " and when a very little fel- 

 low, he could cut and put together a well-fitting pair of shoes 

 for his sisters' dolls, was no bad tailor, and could make a min- 

 iature barrel that was perfectly water-tight. He remembered 

 these trivial facts as a valuable part of his incidental educa- 

 tion. He said he owed much of his dexterity in manipulation 



475 



