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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. LI 



Whitman trait, as it is strikingly reproduced in his cousin, 

 Mrs. Smith. Moreover his grandfather Leonard had an 

 exceptionally fine head (Fig. 7). 



6. The general slenderness of form is a Leonard trait. 

 His father and some of his sihs were stout, as is one of his 

 sisters, while his other sibs are slender, like himself. 



Taste for Natural History.— This was, doubtless, in- 

 nate and it was very strong, developed very early, as we 

 have seen above, and led to his keeping animals and 

 mounting birds. Thus he kept, as a small boy, mud 

 turtles, rabbits, guinea pigs, woodchucks, and raccoons. 

 Later, his sister recalls, he kept two gray squirrels which 

 were so tame that they would go to sleep in his pockets. 

 He kept doves, which he would tend carefully and of which 

 he would watch the young after they were hatched. These 

 doves would cover him as he fed .them. He was fond of 

 hunting. His stuffed eagle was especially famous. On 

 one occasion, at the age of twenty-four years, he was gone 

 two nights and a day after an owl. Mr. H. T. Libbey, 

 of Bryant's Pond, told me that on one occasion he went 

 out with Charles after a large bird and was gone all day. 

 It is interesting that the special objects of interest of his 

 early years should have been those of his late years. If 

 we seek for the origin of this strong taste in such an out- 

 of-the-way part of the world we find it, as stated above, in 

 the blood of the pioneer, adventurer, hunter and lover of 

 nature which sought the wilderness of Maine at the end 

 of the eighteenth century. Actually, one finds evidence of 

 love of hunting and of nature in close relatives, especially 

 on the father's side. First, Charles's sister, Adrianna, 

 was as fond of natural history as himself. She had a 

 tame bluejay which stayed about the house like a crow. 

 Charles's uncle, Chauncey C. Whitman, was a farmer who 

 devoted himself, in his later years, particularly to the 

 raising of horses and cattle. It is told of him^ that, when 

 he was twenty-four, he joined his fellow townsmen on a 

 bear hunt and finally the bear was found in his den under 

 the roots of a large tree. Chauncey ''had the temerity to 



4Lapham, 1882. 



