60 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
to England. He had inherited a fortune of a thousand 
pounds a year and the estate of Nutgrove, at Prescott 
near Liverpool, from a relative who, distrusting his 
habit of wandering in barbarous countries, made the 
condition that he should forfeit it unless he spent six 
months of every year on the estate. It is said he rendered 
this somewhat less onerous by choosing the last and 
first six months of succeeding years so as to have a clear 
year at his disposal. 
He also saw T. A. Conrad’s ® collection of Silurian 
fossils, and was informed that several new Trilobites were 
among the fossils he had sent from Carlisle. January 
4th, 1842, he returned to New York. Later in the month 
he had what seems to have been a serious attack of influ- 
enza, which not yielding to treatment, he wrote for per- 
mission to return home. On the 2oth he left New York 
and reached home on the 22nd. 
From Spencer F. Baird to William M. Baird. 
New York, Jan. 7. 1842. 
Dear BRotuER, 
I returned last Tuesday from a very pleasant visit to Philadelphia; 
of about a week; having seen a great many curiosities & old friends. 
I took tea one night with Dr. Marshall at Isaac Lea’s, who showed 
me his splendid collection of fossils & shells. I obtained also several 
skins there from a young man named Woodhouse, of Muscicapa 
Acadica & Vireo Noveboracensis. Also those birds I procured from 
16 Timothy Abbott Conrad, born at Trenton, N. J., Aug. 21, 1803; 
died Aug. 7, 1878 (according to his relative Dr. C. C. Abbott). A 
prolific writer on paleontological and other scientific subjects; 
especially associated with the work of the New York State Survey 
and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. One of the 
participants in the long continued controversy between Isaac Lea, 
S. G. Morton and others, in the thirties of the last century. 
