252 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
From Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper? to Spencer F. Baird. 
Cooperstown, N. Y., Dec. 12, 1850. 
I owe you many thanks, Sir, for the very interesting documents 
you so kindly sent a short time since; the memoir on the Indians I 
had just been wishing for, when it arrived so opportunely, and you 
are quite right in supposing that I am particularly interested in all 
that concerns the red race of our own regions. Let me add also, 
Sir, that your own papers which came with the memoir of Mr. Squier 
were very gratefully received and not entirely thrown away upon me, 
although I am not sufficiently well informed on those subjects to do 
them full justice. 
As regards your inquiries after our Otsego Bass, or rather after 
the “good-natured doctor” or “gentleman of scientific pursuits,” 
who is qualified to prepare them for the Smithsonian Institution, I 
regret to say that, while the first are common enough, the last are 
rare birds in our neighborhood. Our doctors may be very good- 
natured, but they confine themselves I believe entirely to their 
professional occupations. A year or two since, we might perhaps 
have complied more easily with your request, for at that time there 
were at least one or two noted fishermen in the village;-and one of 
our neighbors on the banks of the lake was sufficiently interested 
in matters of a scientific nature, I think, to have complied willingly 
with your application; but among the chances and changes of Ameri- 
can life, our two anglers have gone to other parts of the country, 
and the other gentleman referred to is now in Europe. Still we do 
not entirely despair of sending you some specimens of the Bass; 
my Father thinks it possible that a gentleman who has recently 
purchased a place in our neighborhood, a physician from the West 
Indies, may perhaps have the will and ability to prepare the fish 
for you; at any rate he intends making the application in your behalf, 
and should it prove successful, you shall be informed of the result. 
The Bass are quite common still, though less numerous than in past 
*Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of the novelist, born at 
Scarsdale, New York, in 1813; died Dec. 31, 1894. She was the 
author of several books in which the natural features of the region 
in which she resided were made a pleasing element. 
