) 
Life of Zadock Thompson.—Perkins. 69 
In an obituary published soon after Prof. Thompson’s 
death by his colleague and successor, Mr. Augustus Young, 
we find the following: “At the time of his death, Prof. 
Thompson was a professor of natural history in the University 
of Vermont, an institution to which he had been greatly at- 
tached since his graduation and the eminent self-taught natur- 
-alist who had devoted his life in a quiet and unpretentious way 
to independent scientific enquiry and the labors of authorship 
and the ministry, died in his humble home near the university 
with his intellectual armor on, ere his eye had grown dim or 
his natural force abated.” 
In the preparation of his works on natural history Prof. 
Thompson was brought into friendly relations with many of 
the scientists of his time. One of these, Dr. T. M. Brewer, of 
Boston, thus speaks of his friend: 
“His loss both as a citizen and a public man is one of no 
ordinary character. We have known him long and well, and 
in speaking of such a loss we know not which most to sympa- 
thize with, the family from whom has been taken the upright, 
devoted kindhearted head, or that larger family of science who 
have lost an honored and most valuable member. Modest and 
unassuming, diligent and indefatigable in his scientific pursuits, 
attentive to all, whether about him or at a distance, whether 
friends or strangers, no man will be more missed, not merely 
in his immediate circle of family and friends, but in that larger 
sphere of the lovers of natural science, than Zadock Thomp- 
son.” 
It would be quite impossible to understand the later life of 
Prof. Thompson unless the place filled by his wife be fully 
recognized, for he never could have accomplished all that 
he did without her efficient aid. Their attachment began 
when as children they wandered through the fields in search 
of anything strange or attractive and in after years, when 
as husband and wife they occupied a little white cottage that 
until a few years back stood near the college campus, they 
continued in more mature and useful fashion the same investi- 
gations. Here many years after her husband’s death, Mrs. 
Thompson lived in cheery old age, never losing her interest in 
the study of nature. Of more practical value was her shrewd 
-and skillful management of the household finance by which 
