26 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
ingly moved there and remained for many years. After 
a time, my great-grandmother, Mrs. Biddle, also moved 
to Carlisle, and her two sons, William and Edward, 
having studied law, settled down there to practice their 
profession. After my Grandfather Baird’s death, my 
grandmother moved there with her children, as did also 
thefyoungest sister, Mrs. Blaney, with her children, on 
becoming a widow. As a consequence during a great 
part of my father’s childhood and early youth Carlisle 
was the home, not only of his grandmother but of all 
her descendants,—five children and twenty-seven grand- 
children, as well as her two daughters-in-law and her 
surviving son-in-law. 
“T think that one of the great evidences of my great- 
grandmother’s penetration was her recognition of merit 
in my father’s scientific tastes. His love of Natural 
History was not regarded as a matter of importance by 
his uncles. Many of the boys and men of the family 
were keen sportsmen, but their interest in Nature was 
that of those who hunt and fish for amusement and exer- 
cise. That there could be anything deeper and more 
serious in the study of Nature was little realized in those 
days. A professional Naturalist who not only depended 
upon it for his living but made scientific research his life 
work was at that time nearly unknown in this country. 
My great-grandmother seems in this as in some other 
things to have been ahead of her time. My gentle grand- 
mother always encouraged her children to do anything 
they wished, when it was possible for her to afford it, 
and which she did not consider wrong. It was thought, 
however, by the rest of the family, with the exception 
of his grandmother, that the months and years which 
my father devoted to the study of animal life, when they 
