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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. LI 



than average meebanical ability and Edgar was a carpen- 

 ter and always ingenious. Even Elhanan's daughter, 

 Mary, says she is handy with tools and so are all of her 

 sons. On the mother's side we have doubtless mechan- 

 ical interests in at least the grandfather, Solomon Leon- 

 ard, the iron founder. 



The social instinct was highly developed in Whitman. 

 While he rarely appeared at social functions and seemed 

 to shrink from exercising the presidential office to which 

 learned societies repeatedly elected him, yet he liked the 

 society of his younger colleagues, frequently had infor- 

 mal lunches or dinners and, after the excellent meal, would 

 encourage the guests to sit and talk on the matters that 

 were uppermost in the minds of such young and ardent 

 students of biology. 



Given a young man of good health, fairly ambitious, 

 dogged, scholarly, gentle, friendly, philosophical, conserv- 

 ative, with an ardent love of natural objects, literary and 

 artistic ability of a high order, and with a savoir faire 

 and place him in an environment of a scholarly uncle who 

 is in a position to assist his nephew; of the stimulus of 

 magnetically charged biological atmospheres at Penikese 

 and at Leipzig ; of an epoch when new machinery and new 

 methods are being rapidly introduced into a new science ; 

 of a period in a young science that demanded organiza- 

 tion of laboratories, university departments, societies and 

 journals; and the reaction is that of the propositus; even 

 though handicapped (!) with a hypokinetic tempera- 

 ment, an uncompromising attitude and, in his earlier 

 years, an occasional tendency toward caustic criticism. 

 At any rate such was the man, such the environment that 

 provided the stimulus, and such the life history of Charles 

 Otis Whitman. 



LTTERATUEE CITED 

 Cole, Alfred ami C. F. Whitman, 1915. A History of Biickfield, Oxford 



County, Maine. Buckfield, Me. 758 pp. 

 Farnam, O. IT., 1889. Genealogy of Whitman Family. 

 Lapham, W. B., 1882. History of Wocdsto.-k. Mr.itie. 



Lillie, F. R., 1911. Charles Otis Wliittna n. J..,u-,niJ of Morphology, XXII, 



pp. xv-lxxvii. Dec. 

 Morse, E. S., 1912. Biographical M.Muoir of Charles Otis Whitman, 1812- 



1910. Nat. Acad, of Sci. Biofjiai.hical .Memoirs, Vol. VII, pp. 2 



