﻿In Memoriam — Louis Agassiz. 



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Another writer says: " Before he left school (at Bienne), he began 

 to collect and study into the habits of fishes." Now, the love of 

 angling once firmly implanted in a boy's heart, it follows him 

 through life, never to be wholly eradicated, but oftener to grow' 

 stronger with the accumulation of years, and not seldom influencing 

 the whole course of his life. I know many men whose interest in 

 natural history, and especially in biology, dates from the days of 

 earliest childhood, when, with pin-hook and willow wand, they 

 first essayed the gentle art, and produced consternation dire among 

 the chubs and shiners of the brook. We, of the gentle craft, can 

 readily imagine how eagerly young Agassiz turned from the weari- 

 some school-room to the bright rippling waters of Lake Bienne, or 

 to the foaming trout brooks of the Jura, and can fully appreciate 

 the happy transition from the musty books of classic authors to 

 the fair, bright pages of Nature's book. It seems to me that 

 these early impressions, and this first love, must have had the 

 greatest influence in shaping his subsequent career, as we may 

 presently see. 



His ancestors were of French origin, and were among the 

 Huguenots who, in 1685, were forced to fly from their native coun- 

 try by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They found a safe 

 and hospitable asylum in the free mountain air of Switzerland. 

 For six generations the lineal ancestors of Agassiz were clergymen. 

 His father was pastor of St. Imier, a Protestant parish in the 

 ancient bishopric of Basel, and later of the parish of Mottier, 

 (where Agassiz was born,) and still later he removed to Orbe, at 

 the foot of the Jura Mountains, where a young clergyman instructed 

 the willing student in botany, during his vacations from the school 

 at Bienne. 



Now it might readily be inferred, from the very nature of his 

 home influences, and his antecedents, and from the operation of 

 the laws of heredity, that he would naturally have followed in 

 the well-beaten path of his predecessors, and have adopted the 

 profession of his forefathers. And doubtless, this course would 

 have been highly gratifying to his parents. But his mind and 

 tastes were inclined in another direction, and how far they were 

 formed and influenced by the " amusements of fishing and collect- 



