2 



The Naturalist. 



" Very well. There will be a meeting of the Royal Society to-night. 

 I will take you with me there." 



All the great scientific savants of England belonged to this 

 society. That evening, towards its close, Sir Roderick rose and said : 



" I have a young friend here from Switzerland, who thinks he knows 

 something about fishes ; how much, I have a fancy to try. There is, 

 under this cloth, a perfect skeleton of a fish which existed long before 

 man." He then gave the precise locality in which it had been found, 

 with one or two other facts concerning it. The species to which the 

 specimen belonged was, of course, extinct. 



Can you sketch for me on the blackboard your idea of this fish % " 

 said Sir Roderick. 



Agassiz took up the chalk, hesitated a moment, and then sketched 

 rapidly a skeleton fish. Sir Roderick held up the specimen. The 

 portrait was correct in every bone and line. The grave old doctors 

 burst into loud applause. 



"Sir," Agassiz said, on telling the story, "that was the proudest 

 moment of my life — no, the happiest ; for I knew, now, my father 

 would consent that 1 should give my life to science." 



Agassiz "s faith in his father was a little premature, as we shall 

 see. On the completion of his studies at Lausanne natural history 

 had gained so great an ascendency over him that he chose the 

 profession of medicine, as offering the best opportunities for prosecut- 

 ing his favourite pursuits. He studied medicine at Zurich, Heidel- 

 berg, and Munich. At Heidelberg he devoted himself especially to 

 the science of Comparative Anatomy, under the direction of the 

 celebrated Professor Tiedemann, and his proficiency in this department 

 subsequently stood him in good stead. Here, too, he was noted not 

 only for his glow and ardour in study, but also for the rare talent of 

 managing, with equal dexterity, the rapier and the scalpel. He 

 remained at Munich four years, and took the degree of M.D. there in 

 1829. 



Before this Agassiz had begun lecturing to his fellow students, and 

 had written several important papers on Zoology. His already 

 extensive knowledge of natural history soon attracted the notice of 

 scientific men. So great was his reputation that in the year 1826, 

 Martins, the eminent Bavarian naturalist, entrusted to him the editing « 

 of an account of no less than 116 species of fish, which he and his 

 travelling companion Spix had collected in Brazil. Agassiz was led 

 by his study of this work to form a new classification of fishes, in 

 accordance with the formation of their scales, to which he sub- 



