114 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



sixteen, tells me that he recollects my father on one of 

 these occasions — a proof that his personality, unknown as 

 he had been, awakened some general attention. The 

 society and its visitors sat around a table in the great hall 

 of the museum, candles dimly and ineffectually lighting up 

 the space. In the gallery, just above their heads, sat the 

 skeleton of a murderer, riding the skeleton of a horse, the 

 steed galloping, and the ghastly rider flourishing his up- 

 lifted hand with an air of great hilarity. Part of the social 

 entertainment consisted in looking over some fine coloured 

 plates of American fishes, just out ; among which Gosse 

 recognized, with interest, the large, richly coloured sculpen 

 {Cott2ts), so common in the clear water round the wharves 

 of Carbonear. 



It seems to have been suggested to him by one of the 

 savants of Philadelphia that he would find a useful field 

 for his energy in the state of Alabama ; and this gentle- 

 man — Mr. Timothy A. Conrad, the conchologist — was so 

 kind as to give him an introduction to a friend of his at 

 Claiborne, which afterwards proved useful. On Sundays, 

 while he was in Philadelphia, he went to the Dutch 

 Reformed Church, in Sassafras and Crown Streets. There 

 was no pulpit there, but a wide raised platform with chairs. 

 The Rev. George Washington Bethune, an eloquent and 

 genial man, who died much lamented in 1862, walked to 

 and fro as he discoursed, in the manner since adopted by 

 Mr. Spurgeon. But Gosse's thoughts in Philadelphia were 

 almost exclusively occupied with the memories of Alex- 

 ander Wilson, that greatest of ornithologists. Wilson was 

 at that time his main object of enthusiastic admiration, 

 and he occupied himself in visiting every spot which bore 

 reminiscences of the noble naturalist. Here was his 

 residence ; in yonder house he " kept school ; " here were 

 the birds which his own hands had shot and skinned ; 



