678 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters. 
He writes to Brewer, August 11, 1861, in detail of all the 
birds, eggs, and nests he had seen that season and what he had 
secured, then adds that he had received an advertisement of a 
splendid work with plates by Baird and Cassin on North American 
birds: “to purchase such a work is for me out of the question”. 
He requests Brewer to ask the editors if he could get the work 
“by exchanging birds and animals. I am willing to collect a good deal 
to obtain a good book.” 
“I am about collecting insects for the Royal Museum in Stockholm, 
Prof. Boheman, and know of no way to get insect pins here. May I ask 
you to assist me in this matter. Are such articles kept for sale in Bos¬ 
ton? If so can I trouble you with sending me by express a lot of 5 to 
6000, if they are not too high prices I would like 10,000 (altogether of 
2 or 3 sizes, most of the small numbers). I know not the price here, 
but in Copenhagen they cost about one dollar for 1000. As soon as possi¬ 
ble I can get hold of Eastern money I will repay you, for our money here 
is very bad indeed, most of it uncurrent everywhere. If I can obtain 
no pins in U. S. I will have to order some from Europe, but then I would 
have to put off collecting insects till next year. I know I am taxing your 
kindness to the utmost, but forgive! You have always been so kind to 
me and I have.no friend or acquaintance at all in the East! Yours very 
respectfully, Thure Kumlien.” 
The Museum of Comparative Zoology, founded in 1859 at Cam¬ 
bridge, with Louis Agassiz as its curator, was the repository of 
Agassiz’ immense accumulation of scientific collections and was 
commonly called the Agassiz museum. In a letter dated October 
23, 1873, Dr. Brewer writes: 
“Mr. Allen of Prof. Agassiz’ Museum is to spend the evening with me. 
I can then tell from him what he will want for the museum of skins, 
nests, and eggs; and I shall went those separately.” 
On the order which was received, some fifty birds’ nests, eggs, 
and skins were shipped to the museum of comparative zoology, 
Cambridge. It was this and other information that came to Louis 
Agassiz before and after that led him to make the remark pub¬ 
lished in the public press that Thure Kumlien of Busseyville was 
the greatest authority in the world on birds’ nests. 
We have no space to print the mass of information and ques¬ 
tions put to Kumlien in this correspondence, but to illustrate 
here is one in a letter from Dr. Brewer dated November 22, 
1873: 
“I shall be glad of all the notes you or your son can let me have in 
regard to water birds. What you have? When they visit you? How 
