86 LOUIS AGASSIZ 



with the ozone imagination gives it 

 up. Such feminine eye-witnesses as we 

 have consulted turn with a shiver from 

 the recollection ; and the more humor- 

 ous reminiscences which have found their 

 way into print present a confused pict- 

 ure of snapping turtles lurking under 

 the stairs, of a little fox and other sur- 

 prises in the garden, and of a general 

 need for wary walking. Agassiz's or- 

 derly arrangement of the animal king- 

 dom was certainly, in his own favourite 

 phrase, " ideal, not material.' 7 It is 

 said that a lady asked him at a dinner to 

 explain the difference between a frog and 

 a toad. The Great Professor, beaming 

 with pleasure at not being taken una- 

 wares, dived first into his right pocket 

 and then into his left, produced two 

 living specimens, and then and there 

 made the matter plain to her. Even 

 after his second marriage these habits 

 prevailed ; and one of the favourite 

 Cambridge anecdotes concerning him 



