PROFESSOR VERRILL 



what they could do, and also to discourage 

 those that seemed unfit. Sometimes he was 

 mistaken, of course, and the student would 

 persevere and stay on — and sometimes turned 

 out well later. In fact, his treatment was 

 highly and essentially individualistic. 



In my own case, he questioned me closely as 

 to what I had previously done and learned. 

 He found I had made collections of birds, 

 mammals, plants, etc., and had mounted and 

 identified them for several years, and in that 

 way was not a beginner exactly. I remember 

 that before I had been with him six months 

 he told me I knew more zoology than most 

 students did when they graduated. Therefore 

 my case was not like some others. He had 

 an idea, of course, that though I had collected 

 and mounted birds, and knew their names and 

 habits, I probably knew little about their 

 anatomy. At any rate the first thing he did 

 was to give me a badly mutilated old loon, from 

 old alcohol, telling me to prepare the skeleton. 

 This I did so well and so quickly that he ex- 

 pressed regret that he had not given me some 

 better bird with unbroken bones. He gave me 



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