xxxj BOSTON TO WASHINGTON 117 



I reached Washington on December 31, and after spend- 

 ing four days with Professor Riley, the State entomologist, 

 I took a room at the Hamilton Hotel, where (with the 

 exception of ten days in Canada) I lived till April 7. I 

 found Washington a very pleasant residence on account of 

 the large number of scientific men in the various Government 

 departments and in the Smithsonian Institution, and also the 

 presence of many literary men, as representatives of the great 

 northern papers or as permanent or temporary residents. 

 Among my earliest acquaintances was Dr. Elliott Coues, a 

 man of brilliant talents, wide culture, and delightful personality, 

 with whose ideas I had much in common, and with whom I 

 soon became intimate. He was not only a practical but 

 highly philosophical biologist, and was equally interested 

 with myself in psychical research. I met many pleasant 

 people at his house, where I often spent my Sunday evenings. 

 I found another equally close friend in Professor F. Lester 

 Ward, who divided his enthusiasms and his work between 

 botany and sociology, both subjects which (as an amateur) 

 interested myself His writings on the latter subject are 

 very numerous — his "Dynamic Sociology," in two large 

 volumes, being a masterpiece of elaborate systematic study 

 of almost every phase of social science. A more readable 

 and more suggestive work is his " Psychic Factors of Civiliza- 

 tion," published in 1893, and he has since contributed numerous 

 papers and addresses of great value to periodicals or to the 

 publications of scientific societies. 



As soon as the earliest flowers appeared, he took me long 

 Sunday walks in the wild country round Washington, our 

 first being, on February 13, through the stretches of virgin 

 forest called Woodley Park, now, I believe, a botanical and 

 zoological reserve, where many interesting plants were 

 gathered to send home — Goodyera, Epigcea repens, Carex 

 platyphylla^ and the curious leafless parasite called beech- 

 drops, allied to our orobanche. One curious bog-plant, 

 SymplocarpiLS foetidus^ was in flower, as was the pretty blue 

 hepatica, also found in Europe. February and March were, 

 however, very cold, and Washington was snow-covered and 



