THE YOUNG PROFESSOR 179 
town. It proved unexpectedly rich in bones of Pleistocene 
animals. Some minute albino crustacea were found, and 
a multitude of bats. 
Several later visits were made and, with the help of 
the students, every crevice was explored and large addi- 
tions of fossil bones added to the first lot obtained. 
Among them were those of the horse, the beaver, deer 
and some carnivora. 
In March Mrs. Churchill moved into a house next 
door which involved quite an upheaval of Baird’s study 
in making the change. For some time he, with the assist- 
ance of some of his pupils, was energetically devoted to 
the capture of salamanders, and records collecting one 
hundred specimens in one afternoon in addition to frogs, 
toads and snakes. 
From George P. Marsh to S. F. Baird. 
WasHINGTON April 18, 1848. 
Dear Barrp,— 
I give you joy of your Salamanders, first because they are nasty 
creatures that nobody will steal, and secondly, because they are so 
incombustible (if you doubt, read Benvenuto Cellini) that when 
some envious rival naturalist sets your museum on fire, they will 
escape unscathed. In them, therefore, you have an abiding treasure, 
and I trust your salamandrian and protean heads (which we learn 
from Horace, omne cum proteus, &c., was some years since driven out 
to pasture in the Alleghenies and Adirondacks) will multiply until 
they shall be as the sand of the seashore. 
I will see the man with the hard name, who chiefly affecteth 
malacology, and propound in your behalf a swap between old Europe 
and young America. There is also a Thuringian who looks like an 
American but is none as the poet sings:— 
Thuringens Berge, zum Exampel, geben 
Gewachs, sieht aus wie Wein, 
Ist’s aber nicht; 
