4 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



In winter I usually attended the district school, but was so far in advance 

 of all the other pupils that I was in a class by myself in most of the branches 

 taught, and received little aid from the teacher. A large part of my last 

 term in the district school was devoted to solving the "miscellaneous 

 examples" at the end of Greenleaf's higher arithmetic, then commonly in 

 use in the schools of the region, and in such other school arithmetics as I 

 could borrow from friends who had long since finished their school days. 

 One winter was spent entirely at home (I was then probably in my fifteenth 

 year), in the study of such natural history books as I could command, and 

 of a borrowed copy of Webster's unabridged dictionary, from which I 

 copied a large part of the natural history definitions. 



At Wilbraham Academy and Home Studies (1858-1862). 



Then followed several winter terms at the Wilbraham Academy where 

 I selected my own studies, which included at first physiology, natural 

 philosophy, astronomy, and chemistry, in addition to English grammar and 

 arithmetic; later rhetoric, algebra, Latin, French and German were sub- 

 stituted for the natural sciences. Humboldt's 'Cosmos' (in English), and 

 works of similar character constituted my favorite reading outside of my 

 school work. 



My summers were still spent on the farm, where, equipped with ele- 

 mentary works on meteorology, geology and mineralogy, I had ample food 

 for thought. Lyell's 'Principles of Geology,' Dana's 'Mineralogy,' the 

 'Proceedings' of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

 (the full series as far as then published), and various State geological and 

 natural history reports were studied with avidity. 



During this period my ever present ambition was to write a history of 

 the "Birds of New England" that should be as complete and exhaustive 

 as possible, and based on original observation, including the necessary 

 explorations in northern New England where so many of the migratory 

 species were supposed to pass the breeding season. Next to this I looked 

 upon editorial work as an enviable goal. Yet at the time these aspirations 

 began to develop composition was a slow and difficult task, and to acquire 

 facility in writing I forced myself to keep a daily journal, in which I re- 

 corded not only the current weather conditions in detail but every incident 

 of my daily experiences that seemed to offer a subject for comment. 



In Professor Oliver Marcy, teacher of the natural sciences at Wilbraham 

 Academy and later professor and finally dean of the faculty at Northwest- 

 ern University, I found a most sympathetic friend and counsellor. It was 



