262 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
history to be a crime, and if I am hung for it, I shall still say the 
sentence was just. I say to you in strict confidence that I expect 
to come back next winter and go as high as Khartum in 16 degrees, 
and if possible even further. Therefore, send me not only spirits, 
but vessels. Casks are not: good in this dry and cooperless land. 
Strong glass with wide mouths and good corks, bladders or some other 
mode of making them tight, I should prefer, but I think good tins 
proved beforehand would answer well. The trouble or expense of 
collection J don’t mind, but the materials of preservation can’t be 
got here. Let me have everything forthwith, not next winter, but 
now. You'll get this in June. Don’t wait till cold weather, but send 
your traps to lasigi & Goddard in a month at most to be sent by first 
ship to Smyrna, otherwise they will come too late. I will look out 
sharp for salamanders and if I find a new one, you shall name it 
Salamandrileus Bairdii or the like. Don’t make the name good 
Latin. The naturalists won’t be able to construe it if you do. Don’t 
let your husband work himself to death, Mary. Take away his 
tools and let him journey. Wasn’t that a good word I made in my 
last letter? “Snakery”? Put it into all the scientific glossaries and 
things. I like your plan of exchange, but am sorry your time should 
be taken up with clerk-work. The personnel of the Smithsonian 
ought to be increased. It is by no means large enough. What is 
Jewett doing? I have not heard from him for a long time. I have 
many things to say to you, my son, but on Monday I go in pursuit 
of the children of Israel as Pharaoh did, and have no time. Go on 
as you have begun, but don’t undertake too much, nor waste these 
golden hours of your precious youth on matters of mere routine. Let 
the dead bury their dead, but do thou fulfil thy vocation. Mary 
knoweth that she is dear unto me even as thou, and I thank her for 
her kind expressions of interest in her ancient friend. And now I 
bid ye both heartily farewell. 
Your true well-wisher, 
GeorcE P. Marsu. 
P.S. I send a box of shells and diving snails with a dried croco- 
dile’s egg. The palm fruit in the same box is for Doctor Wislizenus. 
The snails are from the Desert. 
