Physical Features and Habitats 13 



and just beyond the county line. With the ex- 

 ception of a two years' visit to France, he resided 

 here until 1808, returning to visit his father-in-law 

 at "Fatland Ford" in 1812 and 1824. His en- 

 thusiastic search for ornithological material doubt- 

 less often found him on Chester county soil and as 

 some of his published notes apply to either side of the 

 river, he may be considered our first ornithologist. 



Thomas Say* entered the Friends' Boarding 

 School of Westtown, in May, 1799, being the 

 seventeenth boy admitted to the newly established 

 school. In those days the register number was re- 

 garded as of great importance and placed on all 

 clothing. Most of the school farm of 600 acres 

 along the Chester creek was primeval forest at this 

 time and for many years later, although the deer 

 and bear had disappeared. While here, young Say, 

 no doubt learned much bird-lore useful later in Gov- 

 ernmental work, but the discipline then in vogue 

 appeared too severe for one of his peculiarly sensi- 

 tive nature and he seemed to have acquired and re- 

 tained in after life to his detriment, an intense dis- 

 like for his teachers and for all ordinary branches 

 of study. 



Early in 1 81 9, John K. Townsend,^ then a lad of 

 little more than nine years, entered the West- 

 town school. Another pupiP of that period writes 

 entertainingly of a poaching adventure that cost him 

 and his newly found friend a sound birching. Tak- 

 ing a page out of the squirrel's book, it was the 

 custom of the students of this school to hoard fruit 

 and nuts in boxes hidden away in the earth. For this 



