THE YOUNG PROFESSOR 175 
to the Cyclops, &c. But it is quite impossible to preserve these 
small species so that they can be properly studied afterwards from 
the specimen, though, if kept in alcohol, they will answer to verify 
some particulars of a description. . . . The specimen you sent 
is a Gammarus, one of the Amphipoda. 
I learn that it is proposed by the Smithsonian Institute to have 
no Curator appointed until the building is up. 
Very truly yours 
James D. Dana. 
From S. S. Haldeman to S. F. Baird. 
Near CotumsiaA, Pa., December 3, 1847. 
Dear Bairp,— 
I am glad to learn that your fishes turn out as well as you assert 
in your last letter of the 26th Novr. You were just the man to clean 
them up properly and thereby do a credit to your country and 
yourself. 
I think your best course, now that your work is accumulating, 
will be most decidedly to complete your synopsis of N. Am. Aves, 
as this is necessarily more complete than anything else you have 
or will have for some time to come. You are known as an ornitholo- 
gist and owe this to the ornithological world. If I may be allowed 
to volunteer a hint it is this. Afterward, write de piscibus to your 
heart’s content and become a chief authority in this slippery republic, 
for we have no animal kingdoms here. I suppose you have seen 
Holbrook’s Southern Ichthyology. It is a pretty work and I think 
accurate. 
I think I never noticed the Gobius you speak of as such, though 
my notes or drawings may indicate the barbules. Speaking of 
Salmonide, the head of a Salmon sent to you is from a specimen 
taken here in the Susquehanna—the only one I have seen. 
I must send you my Cottus Viscosus when an opportunity offers. 
Ayres says I am wrong in asserting that the proportions are different 
from the European fish—yet my specimen differs from the description 
and dimensions given by the accurate Jenyns. I do not now remember 
