LOUIS AGASSIZ 5 



authority. When at last he had access 

 to scientific books, he had already learned 

 that the thing itself was better worth 

 study than was its description ; and, 

 indeed, he knew the Swiss fishes so well 

 that he wondered to find so little in 

 print about those instincts, habits, atti- 

 tudes, and motions with which he was 

 familiar. Alexander Braun, later his 

 fellow-student at Heidelberg, wrote home 

 from there that Agassiz was familiar 

 with every beast, knew the birds from 

 far-off by their song, and could give a 

 name to every fish in the water. 



In the spring of 1826, when nineteen 

 years old, Agassiz left Zurich for Heidel- 

 berg ; and here his true university life 

 began. He and his brother parted, 

 Auguste returning to the commercial 

 apprenticeship which the older brother 

 refused, and Louis going out to make 

 new friends, whose first friendship came 

 from an intellectual sympathy and from 

 like intellectual aims, not from blood re- 



