4 
Psyche 
March 
extremely well acquainted with the famous cat of her child- 
hood, so dignified that she and her brother always referred 
to it as Mister Verdant Green. She belonged to a good 
substantial Boston family and seemed to be related to a 
large number of prominent persons, which did not prevent 
her from expressing her, not always high, opinion of these 
relatives. She had evidently had an extremely happy child- 
hood and a youth filled with trips to Europe and the typical 
Bostonian’s cultural interests. The family had even been 
so progressive that they had allowed her to go to Radcliffe, 
which definitely was the great adventure of her life, as for 
all women of her generation who suddenly were allowed 
to get the same education as their brothers. She belonged 
to the class of 1897 but she did not graduate. There may 
have been illness in her family, or it may have been just 
at that time that her family, as well as many other sub- 
stantial Bostonians, were rather hard hit financially. Her 
interests were with natural history and she became early 
acquainted with the men in the Boston Natural History 
Museum and those connected with the Agassiz Museum, 
and in the latter institute she was soon given the little 
division of spiders to take care of. In her younger days she 
was an eager field worker: there was a widespread interest 
in nature study in Boston and she took part in many 
botanical and zoological excursions and built up quite a 
collection of New England spiders. Her father died rather 
early and after that time she took care of her mother for 
many years, while she regularly appeared in the Agassiz 
Museum three times a week, but her outdoor activities 
became quite naturally restricted and her circle of acquaint- 
ances limited to men much older than herself, Mr. Samuel 
Henshaw, Mr. Faxon and especially Mr. J. H. Emerton, who 
was delighted to see a younger person take over in the 
spider field. 
In the museum she had been fortunate to be allotted a 
small division. With the myriapods and mites in two 
neighboring rooms, she was able to have all the spiders 
around her. She learned to type and besides she wrote 
hundreds of cards and labels in her precise, clear hand. Her 
reprint collection was well cared for, with binders which 
