Nov., 1919 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 221 
promulgated prohibiting any Curator from maintaining a private collection of 
his own. The rule, which seems to me to be a wise one, was evidently intended 
to prevent a division of interest, and to focus all the time and attention of the 
Curators upon the Museum collections. 
THE WEST BASEMENT 
Another scientific sanctuary in the old Smithsonian building, redolent of 
many odors and fond memories, was the west basement, in a room of which was 
stored the extensive collection of reptiles and batrachians, the accumulation of 
years by the western survey expeditions and of donations from private indi- 
viduals. Here Dr. Yarrow and I spent much time preparing reports on the 
collections of the Wheeler Survey. Here also Dr. Yarrow made some interest- 
ing experiments with live snakes. Not rarely Prof. Baird looked in upon us 
as he passed along on one of his frequent inspection trips through the build- 
ing. Here also occasionally came Prof. E. D. Cope, whose astonishing memory 
for natural history details was always a source of wonder to me. Here also 
TI used to see Prof. David Jordan at work on fishes when he made one of his 
rare visits to Washington. | 
ACQUAINTANCE WITH DR. D. WEBSTER PRENTISS 
Mention of Dr. Coues’ name naturally recalls that of his associate in the 
publication of the earliest list of the birds of the District of Columbia, Dr. D. 
W. Prentiss. Coues and Prentiss were college mates at the Columbian Univer- 
sity between the years 1858-1862. Their first list of the birds of the District 
was published in 1862 in the annual report of the Smithsonian Institution for 
1861, and was the result of much boyish enthusiasm in the study of birds, to- 
gether with no small amount of hard work. Needless to say that for the time 
it was an excellent piece of work. Nearly twenty-five years later was pub- 
lished in 1883 their ‘‘ Avifauna Columbiana’’ which brought the subject up to 
date, and in many ways marked a great advance over its predecessor. 
Soon after, both men entered the army as surgeons in the Civil War. After 
the war the demands of a growing practice in Washington caused Dr. Prentiss 
to relinquish all active work in ornithology, but he never entirely forgot his 
old love, and in the early eighties he and I made a number of trips after warb- 
lers to my favorite collecting grounds along the banks of the picturesque Rock 
Creek, the site of the present National Zoological Park. On these occasions we 
were up betimes in the morning, and after a hasty bite were off so as to be on 
the ground between four and five o’cloeck, a time of day dear to all bird col- 
leetors. I recall with pleasure the Doctor’s enthusiasm over the first Blaek- 
burnian Warbler he collected and the first he had ever seen. 
The Doctor was something of a sportsman in his younger days, and among 
other reminiscences, told me that, as boys, he and Dr. Coues had killed English 
snipe in a ‘‘little springy place’’ on Dupont Circle, in the heart of what is now, 
or recently was, the fashionable residence part of Washington. He and I made 
one memorable trip to the Patuxent River after soras when an extraordinarily 
high tide flooded the marshes, and gave such shooting as comes to a man, if at 
all, but once in his life. 
ACQUAINTANCE WITH GEO. N. LAWRENCE 
During my annual trips from Washington to Boston I never failed to eall 
on the veteran ornithologist, Geo. N. Lawrence, in New York. As T made my 
