230 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
away, if new to the ways of the family, without receiving 
instructions for making collections or promising to enrich 
the Smithsonian Museum. Later when budding scientists 
were roosting in the Smithsonian towers by night and 
digging away at specimens by day, Professor and Mrs. 
Baird maintained a kindly supervision over the youngsters. 
Sunday evenings they almost always gathered in that 
homelike parlor, often to meet men already distinguished 
in science or war, to hear of the latest discoveries in 
the Far West, or learn the latest European theories on 
disputed scientific questions. Miss Lucy notes in her 
reminiscences: 
“Many young naturalists who were studying in the 
Museum as well as assisting in its work lodged in the 
Smithsonian towers. By the kindness of Professor Henry 
many of the unused rooms, too high up for business 
purposes, and situated conveniently for access to their 
work were assigned to such young students as lodgings. 
They supplied their own furniture and linen and the rooms 
were looked after for a small fee by some of the colored 
employes of the Institution, especially one aged darky 
whose pride it was that he had been the body servant of 
an ex-President of the United States. 
“They usually took their meals at boarding houses in 
the neighborhood, though at one time the wife of Mac. 
Peak the janitor, who lived in the basement, took some 
of them to board. They formed an interesting and some- 
what unique household.” 
Among the friends who were special intimates at this 
period Miss Lucy in her notes mentions Professor William 
W. Turner, an Englishman by birth and eminent as a 
philologist. He died in 1859, and President Felton of 
Harvard, in an obituary notice in the Smithsonian Report 
