10 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



some six months it was impossible for me to read ordinary print, and for 

 several years I could not use my eyes for evening study. 



I returned to my Springfield home early in May, equipped with tanks 

 of alcohol (the well known 'Agassiz tanks') for the preservation of speci- 

 mens. Although in wretched health, suffering from chronic indigestion as 

 well as from weak eyes, I collected over four hundred specimens of animals, 

 chiefly vertebrates, and largely birds, besides taking a share in the farm 

 work. 



On my return to the Museum in the autumn I ventured to express my 

 strong desire to study birds. The condition of my eyes, however, was a 

 great handicap. The mammals and birds were in charge of A. E. Verrill, 

 then a student at the Museum (later professor of zoology for many years 

 at Yale University), who was requested to assign me material for study. 

 The collection of birds consisted at that time of several hundred skins 

 (possibly a thousand or two, all North American), and several thousand in 

 alcohol, nearly all uncatalogued and the alcoholics unidentified. I began 

 with the identification and cataloguing of the alcoholics, which occupied 

 most of my time for many months, and really extended over years, as 

 new collections came in. I soon acquired facility in recognizing birds in 

 obscure plumages after long storage in alcohol, their feathers wet and 

 colors disguised. It was, therefore, good training in the art of "learning 

 to see." My weak eyes, however, prevented study at night, and even the 

 little writing required in entering specimens in the catalogue often entailed 

 much suffering. I attended numerous courses of lectures, but my progress 

 in acquiring further knowledge of languages, so essential to a scientific 

 student, was for a considerable time at a standstill. 



At this time, by direction of Professor Agassiz, I took up the study of 

 Pterylography, with the aid of C. L. Nitzsch's classic 'System der Ptery- 

 lographie' (Halle, 1840), and made many preparations in illustration of the 

 subject from both fresh and alcoholic material, with a view to the publica- 

 tion of an extended illustrated monograph of the Pterylography of the Owls. 

 Illness, however, retarded the work, and other interests and duties inter- 

 vening, it was never completed. But the investigation proved of great use 

 to me in subsequent work in ornithology. 1 



Thus the time passed during the next two years and a half, my vacations 

 being spent at home collecting specimens for the Agassiz Museum. For 



1 Professor Agassiz thus refers to the subject in the Annual Report of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology for the year 1863, p. 17: "111 health has also taken away Mr. Allen from his field of labors. 

 I regret it the more since he has made excellent progress in Ornithology and promised to become a 

 valuable assistant in the arrangement of the specimens of birds. He has left unfinished a very interest- 

 ing investigation upon the structure and arrangement of the feathers of birds." 



