174 Louis Valentine Pirsson. 



(Butt) Pirsson. His parents were very young, the father 

 not yet established in life, and Louis lived at his grand- 

 father's home until after the death of his mother, which 

 took place when he was but 4 years old. There is but 

 slight record of the mother beyond the impression that 

 she was a woman of refinement and possessed of much 

 personal charm. On the father's side there is some evi- 

 dence of an artistic temperament. Pirsson himself re- 

 cords, without reference to individuals, that members of 

 his family were as a rule interested in some form of 

 natural science. 



"When Louis was nearly 9 years old he became the 

 ward of Thomas Lord of New York City, whose wife 

 was a cousin of his father. The Lords were fond of 

 travel and spent several years abroad soon after assum- 

 ing this guardianship, so Louis was placed in the family 

 of Eev. William J. Blain, living on a small farm near 

 Amsterdam, New York. Mr. Blain was the pastor of a 

 small Presbyterian church and was obliged to augment 

 his slender salary by the return for such services and the 

 produce of a few acres of land. Louis was treated as a 

 member of the family, whose head was a strict disciplin- 

 arian of almost puritanical ideas, but he was also a good 

 teacher and from him Louis received the greater part of 

 his primary education. He was also given a thorough 

 training in the strict and regular performance of many 

 small duties which were a part of the regimen necessary 

 for this family. But it was not all work, for Mr. Blain 

 had an excellent library and here the boy early acquired 

 a strong taste for reading of good literature. 



After a few years Mr. Blain took another boy into his 

 family to care for and educate and in the newcomer Louis 

 found the companion needed to assist in developing his 

 latent love for natural history. The following passage 

 from an outline of his early life is significant: "Prac- 

 tically with the advent of this boy my scientific career 

 began. I had been fond of reading books on natural 

 history, some of which I found in Mr. Blain 's library 

 and others which had been sent me by relatives. As soon 

 as I had an active companion we immediately began to 

 go afield. We collected bird's eggs, minerals, and 

 snakes, had a museum in the woodshed, and called our- 

 selves naturalists. The neighboring brooks furnished 

 material for an aquarium which we built. Interest in 

 some form of natural history had existed in most of my 

 family. Up to the time I entered college, and even later, 



